We are citizens, not bait.
In one of the most memorable scenes from the blockbuster 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, the handsome villain, Yul Brynner, playing Ramses, the Egyptian Pharaoh, says to Moses, “ so let it be written, so let it be done.” These lines caught the imagination of audiences worldwide — because in one go — Ramses closed that very humane gap between words and action. That abyss where promises are broken, people are let down, and things just never happen. Yet, we all know, only too well, how much of what is written is never entirely done. Today, we see it happening again.
The Indian Constitution, a magnanimous, magnificent, and mighty manuscript that set out a path for Indian society to transform itself into its best version, seems to languish in that gap. Today, when judges display serious bias; when the ruling party of the day is caught on camera flouting parliamentary procedure; when hate speech is the only political speech when police abet illegal cremation of a rape victim; when the state decides who we can love and marry; when the Government fudges economic data; when all dissent is equated with conspiracy; and when central Government threatens to break fiscal promises to Individual states, we know something is amiss.
Too Idealistic A Piece of Paper?
Is it because those who framed our Constitution were too far-fetched in their imagination? Was it an impossible piece of paper with no basis in reality — doomed from the get-go. ? Did they not consider India’s long-standing struggle to give up our dark sides and our social evils? Did they not think India’s caste and communal divide would make any attempt to develop an inclusive and secular state feel: nervous, tenuous, and even temporary? Were they so giddy on the idea of new freedoms, that they had no idea about the nitty-gritty of swaraj? Seriously — was it entirely foolhardy of a member of the constituent assembly to be so ambitious?
“To all, we give the assurance that we will endeavor to end poverty and squalor and its companions, hunger and disease; to abolish distinction and exploitation and to ensure decent conditions of living…. To all the minorities in India, we give the assurance that they will receive fair and just treatment, and there will be no discrimination in any form against them. Their religion, their culture, and their language are safe, and they will enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizenship. They will be expected in their turn to render loyalty to the country in which they live and to its Constitution.”
Experts tell us, no.
Instead, the men and women, who sat for two years and eleven months, and were part of the Constituent Assembly, vigorously debated all of these problematic issues — complications and implications — and went ahead anyway. Yes, it was an exercise in idealism and perhaps flawed it someway — after all, it was a human endeavor. But even the worst critics would say that India’s constitutional imagination was a large-hearted attempt that was not in denial of its current reality and its past. They acknowledged that we were economically and socially wounded by colonialization, facing mass poverty, communally divided, and a profoundly hierarchical new-born nation. Yet they got down to building a republic that could and would do better and gave us a document that was hopeful — a document engineered for communal harmony, social progress, and poverty alleviation in the new Righteous Republic.
In fact, modern scholars of the Constitution remain awestruck:
“ Here was a document which granted universal adult franchise in a country that was overwhelmingly illiterate; where the conditionality of acquiring citizenship made no reference to race, caste, religion or creed; which committed the state to being secular in a land that was by any reckoning deeply religious; which evacuated as a matter of law every prescriptive form of hierarchy under conditions that were marked by a plethora of entrenched hierarchies; and that granted a raft of fundamental individual rights in the face of virtual total absence of such rights…..One cannot but be awed by the extent and reach of such a vision and plan.”
Those who drafted it seemed to be ready and willing to carry the Burden of Democracy. But that’s not all they did — they also put in place institutions which would become — the VERB (doing entities) — through which these ideals were to be lived and implemented. These institutions were the ‘space’ where ordinary people come and even found a way to fight back.
For one moment, this may have looked like a self-sabotaging move — . By being so inclusive, were we setting the stage for moving slowly? Perhaps yes — yet the message to all Indians and the world was another one:
“Yes, we want to do this, and it’s true that if the Argumentative Indian would just step out of our way, we could get it done quicker, faster, but we won’t, because without this we would make grave errors and fail to keep our ears to the ground. Instead, we will include all our contesting identities in this problematic modern — project: India.”
So why are we here today? Why is it that we are becoming worse at doing what was envisioned?
Is it us? Totally. We refuse to change for the better. Indeed, our society’s egoistic and stubborn commitment to maintaining social norms, which are an anathema to individual human dignity, remain entrenched. Caste, gender-violence, female foeticide, and many more social evils dilute our full potential as a people. After all, how far do we think we can go without taking women and minorities along? It’s like driving a car with two wheels off! Sometimes we do this in the name of God, sometimes in the name of “our community,” and sometimes in the name of “traditions”. Instead of cutting off our sickest parts to be more healthy as a society, we nurture the gangrened parts of ourselves. We exclude members of our community, with the ambition of self-preserving, only to find it’s a self-goal! Indeed, because of this diseased bit in us all, we fall and remain sick over and over again. (This is also why some of our leaders look like witch-doctors peddling exorcism and hate. After all, the sicker the society, the more witch-doctors needed.)
Is it the Government? Yes, we could build better execution capacity in government. To the extent that we consider India’s economic development an exercise to get together and get things done, our record hasn’t been that great. Part of it is the state’s sheer incapacity to convert good intentions to good execution. This could be implementing poverty alleviation programs, targeting subsidies, running public schools and hospitals, facilitating investment in public infrastructure, or smartly managing natural resources. But this is a solvable challenge. We get things done: airports get built, roads get constructed, Niyat (intention) and Niti (policy) do come together often enough, and we prod on, inefficiently. But there is a bigger problem — “ the intention issue” with our leaders and ourselves too. Scams that rip off the tax payors periodically remind us that some greedy folks just don’t get the “greater — good” concept! And it’s not only those in charge — we too, cheat most of the time.
What about the market? Yeah, it’s not perfect, but it works when the gaps are identified and filled. We can’t always blame capitalism and say that markets don’t work in low-income societies. Well, sort of yes, sometimes they don’t. But we have figured out those gaps by now, and we have learned that we could plug them in creative ways. We’ve aggregated small farmers who produced perishable products and created benefits for all in the times when there were no frozen supply chains. We have made poor women a bankable constituency. We are figuring out ways to deliver preventative healthcare at low costs. More recently, in a fascinating story, coming out of the land of the “communist stronghold”, we are seeing how ideology is becoming passé! In this case, we have a private entity contest a local poll where the women running for elections are also part of self-help groups. We can beat and bucket these new emerging models into “isms,” or we can keep finding workable solutions in our complex society.
Is it “that democracy thing”? Nope, it mostly works. The long arch of history has shown that there is no other way to avoid massive disasters and that democracies do better over time. Admittedly, there is, somewhat of a problematic relationship between economic growth and democratic systems. But this “problem” has more to do lack of transparency, collaboration, innovation, smarter regulation, and creative problem-solving. After all, we have, in India, lifted millions out of poverty over the last decade, Yes, China’s story is enormously tempting, but no matter how improbable the idea of democracy appears in India’s context, if we do the math, it’s in our best interest to stay with it.
What about the leaders? This is perhaps the most significant explanation for why we are not doing what was asked of us. Indeed, the arrival of a peculiar class of political leaders, well versed in human — psychology, and art the of propaganda. This lot seems to have tasted electoral blood by preserving regressive social norms, flaming communal embers, and deploying state-resources for political — party and private gain. Their gains have been rather substantial. So rather than making investments in self — healing capacities of society ( read: massive support for education and health) they continue to peddle mythical political projects into our already reptilian brains. They disregard history and dumb it down to political rhetoric. Sometimes in desperation, they go even further, bottling complex historical and often collaborative relationships between communities into bizarre war cries — pitting one against the other.
Question: Where do we go from here? Shall we re-treat or reclaim?
“After all “, Rajendra Prasad said, “ a constitution like machine is a lifeless thing. It acquires life because men** who control it and operate it, and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men** who will have the interest of the country before them. There is fissiparous tendency arising out of various elements in our life. We have communal differences, caste differences, language differences, provincial differences and so forth. It requires men** of strong character, men** of vision, men** who will not sacrifice the interests of the country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas and who will rise over the prejudices which are born of these differences we can only hope that the country will throw up such men** in abundance”.
Answer: It’s up to us !
Meanwhile, to those who gave us the Constitution, we want to say, “thank-you for your courage and vision — we wish you a Happy New Year.”
And to those mission-disoriented leaders, we just want to say, despite your rather “fissiparous” tendencies, we are very aware, that we are citizens, not bait. And mightier leaders know this well…..
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· * Word of 2020: Fissiparous — it means “inclined to cause or undergo division into separate parts or groups.”
· ** Rajendra Prasad’s should have written “honest men & WOMEN.”
· P.s. We take responsibility for the delay in publishing this piece. The author was hacking away at the daily and mundane while thinking about the big picture. The resident artist had exams.
