Democracy and Violence : The Indian Paradox

I wonder some times why there is so much of violence in a democracy like in India. Expression of dissent by violence is understood in contexts where there are totalitarian regimes where the iron fisted rule of the dictator allows only one view to be expressed and all others are ruthlessly suppressed. We see that in Nepal, Pakistan or Bangladesh in our own neighborhood. But in India, flawed or not, we do have a functioning democracy and there is freedom of the press, and yes, even the freedom to express is available to the common man to a large extent. Strikes, Bandhs and other agitations are happening day in day out and it is certainly not the norm for the government in India to suppress peaceful protest.

Then why do we have the kind of incidents as in Dausa recently, where Gurjar protestors were killed for their demands or the one at the Bhutan border where Bhutanese refugees from Nepal wanting to get into India were stoned or the one in Uttar Pradesh recently where a bunch of lawyers in Agra a group of lawyers got together, tied up a young man to a tree and beat him black and blue. The Agra incident where U.P lawyers instead of litigating for justice , decided to take the law into their own hands in the most crass way possible, and earlier , not too long ago, lawyers beat up Nithari serial killings accused Moninder Singh Pandher and Surendra Koli a few months ago in a Ghaziabad court

I seem to see two patterns here. Democracy is based on the pillar of majority opinion prevailing and the minority submitting to the will of the majority even if they do not fully endorse the policies, directions and the over all direction that may be set. Democracy presupposes tolerance and an acceptance where one group of people set aside their opinions and views and cooperates with the majority that wins. The run up to the campaign during elections may be vicious , but once the results are out, there is a gracious acceptance of the results and honest cooperation. This does not happen in India , we are not prepared to sub serve our opinion and thinking to the wishes of the majority, democracy in the Indian psyche is good and helpful if my view prevails, it is scarred , if I have lost. This is witnessed best in the Uttar Pradesh elections, where the victorious Bahujan Samaj Party congratulated the election commission on holding fair elections and the losing Samajwadi Party castigated the same Commission for holding flawed ones.

It is also incumbent on the majority , to make suitable compromises and give heed to the opinions of the side that lost and see if there is merit in any thing that they have done or in their policies. This too , requires a benevolence that most do not display. The tendency of most is to over turn every thing that has been done before with the wrong assumption that a majority in the election gives them temporary omnipotence. 517

In an atmosphere of intolerance , the essence of democracy is killed. Democracy is after all more than holding elections every five years or so , even if it is done with machine like efficiency, though by no means, should this achievement be negated. Democracy is also about listening, participation , and creating space for others and in these areas we as a democracy have still a long way to go. And till that time, we have to be used to those voices go unheard and whose pleas go unheeded take again and again to the streets committing avoidable acts of violence

Nehru's Legacy- Is is now passe ?

Later this month , Jawaharlal Nehru's 47th death anniversary will be observed with the usual solemnity at Shanti Vana in Delhi. Most people in India have some measure of respect for the nation's first Prime Minister- Jawaharlal Nehru. Some or even many of his policies and ideological orientation seem flawed by today's understanding but very few will deny him his place as one of the founders of modern India and by any yardstick a statesman and the one who cemented our still surviving democracy.

Looking at the political churn that all our immediate neighbors seem to be going through , it seems but natural to be grateful for the fact that he lived for 17 years after independence and was the stabilizing influence in a feudal society that was hardly conversant with the niceties of Westminster style parliamentary democracy.

During his long innings in parliament , he chose to contest from Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh which hasn't been as lucky as Amethi and Rae Bareli in in the people it has sent to parliament in the post Nehru era. But History has played a cruel joke on Jawaharlal Nehru — a bandana-wearing mafia don who is accused of murder has taken his place. Everything about Atiq Ahmad is quietly sinister, down to the curl of his mustache. But his fawning followers compare him with the first Prime Minister of India.

Uttar Pradesh has come a long way in its journey in democracy. The Congress Party of Panditji is a distant number four or so in the stakes for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections which are on now. What is sad or baleful about th the whole matter is not the decline of the Congress Party but the brand of “peoples' representatives” that have now taken the place of the late Prime Minister.

The bigger joke on Nehru is not who represents Phulpur in parliament but what kind of person does and the state of the polity in Uttar Pradesh mired as it is between Bahu balis like Atiq or obscurantists like Yogi Adityanath , who don religious garb and practice a kind of politics that was abhorrent to the progressive , forward thinking and secular minded Nehru. Besides, today it finds itself caught in a vicious web of caste politics.

Nehru garnered support from all sections of society and irrespective of ideological affinities was respected by most as a statesman and a humanist.. Today the voting pattern is determined by caste equations: the Yadavs back the Samajwadi Party; the Brahmins support the Bharatiya Janata Party; and the Dalits go along with the Bahujan Samaj Party. And it is not that these parties are any more ideologically pure either.

The Samajwadi party has lost its socialist mooring, the BSP is all things to all people as it realizes that the Bahujan vote alone is not sufficient in electoral politics and the BJP is supposedly open if necessary , to prop a SP led government , to keep the Congress out of any share in the power game. Along the way , the egalitarian society that Nehru dreamed off has fragmented as society fragments along caste lines , propped up by his own Congress led government. Nehru is passe and his ideology obsolete – and no where is it more evident than his parliamentary constituency of Phulpur.