Alarmism is no solution

Everywhere in our country today there is the stench of corruption, shipwreck of justice, and the itch towards violence, so much so that there is practically no ceiling on alarmism about the future. Some intellectuals feel no qualms about conjuring up the image of Armageddon, with analyses variously attributed to lack of political will to fight these evils or just sheer lack of moral fiber. To the old Keynesian cliché that “in the long run we are all dead” is added the codicil that “it is later than you think”.

Never has homespun wisdom seemed more threadbare. So the warnings are filled with more and more adrenaline lest the patient should fail to respond to the old dose. The strange and dangerous thing about such pronouncements, even when realistic, is that they lead to fetishism, to the grand gesture or the token policy designed for no purpose other than the quaint affirmation of the smack of firm government. The machinery of administration, which is well able to stop things happening and to make other things happen, is ill-equipped to initiate.

For this very reason is it likely to respond in a maladroit manner to the constant cry of “do something”: The rupee has fallen to a new low; China and Pakistan are as evil-eyed unto India as ever; Andhra Pradesh is to be bifurcated. Such a situation is bound to bring forth its crops of false prophets, foremost among whom are those who maintain that official firmness is both cause and cure. According to some of them, the helm has long since ceased to command an answer. None of these crude and overused arguments need, however, commend itself to intellectuals with a social conscience.

To give an instance, in the 1990s even cultural activists in Uttar Pradesh were harassed. For instance, the Lucknow police had banned a street play organized by the Jana Sanskriti Manch and arrested the artists. Paradoxically enough, the Manch had earlier been invited to stage the play at a State-sponsored festival. After that, however, all those associated with the play, Janata pagal hogayi hai, (people have gone mad) were threatened and even beaten up by plainclothesmen near the Janpath Market and in Mahanagar in Lucknow.

The play reportedly depicted the chasm between government’s promises and performance. Written by Shiv Ram of Rajasthan, it also explained the politics of votes and attacked the alleged ganging-up of politicians, capitalists and the police against hungry masses. Towards the end, the play allegedly depicted a virtual revolt by the deprived people which makes the exploiters say: “The people have gone mad”. The play did not advocate armed rebellion, but only showed how exploiters shuddered at the thought of the masses coming into their own. Uttar Pradesh has come a long way since then. Yet some politicians look convinced throughout the country that all changes, reforms and revolutions are ways of going to the Devil , and that the duty of the middle-of-the-road government is to make things go as slowly as possible to that person or place.

Equally strong appears to be their conviction that the poor have never been benefited or normally improved as though poverty admits of moral improvement by any legislation in their favour, and that enormous changes do but make them lazier, greedier and more full of hatred and malice than before. Until the poor and their champions are able to make such leaders realize their folly, there is something that the powers that be would do well to ponder. In the Book of the Covenant, handed down on Mount Sinai, we find God’s concern for the poor, the weak, and the distressed.

In this Revelation, the Israelites are warned against taking “the poor’s raiment to pledge”. God’s concern extends to every action and to every person, and He gives an assurance that when the oppressed person “cries to me, I’ll hear, for I am compassionate.” (Exodus-22:21-27)

If you want to understand the relevance of this divine warning to Indian conditions, ask V Subba Rao, president of the Indian People’s Front in Bihar, about how earlier governments had let loose a reign of terror and incited a caste war in villages to frustrate the “kisan” movement and how the Bhoomi Sena of the landlords went berserk every now and then with impunity.

- MV