Sunday, September 03, 2006
PAUL R. BRASS
Outlook Special Issue: I Day Special
Nirvana Is Tomorrow
Democracy promises, but defers deliverance. The 'country' prospers, the people suffer in perpetuity.
A Puerto Rican friend of mine in graduate school at the
One containment, of course, was the famous one, the blockage of Communism or any form of social revolution throughout the developing world. The second was to be internal to each country, irrespective of any real or potential revolutionary threat. Public participation was to be contained until the people and their institutions were ready for it, otherwise the new polities would be submerged under a flood of unrealistic, unattainable popular demands. So, first the people must be tutored, taught patience, taught to vote, taught to postpone the satisfaction of their needs for the sake of future generations.
Hindutva is a form of mystification that aims to provide chimerical dignity in place of material gains.
Academics, along with the new leaders of the postcolonial countries, the "donor" nations and the new world banking institutions in effect hoped for what I call the three 'Ds': deference from the people to the new leaders of the new states, the new nations, and the new institutions, on the one hand, and deferment of any hopes for themselves for the sake of the bright future that was to come for future generations through development.
Despite such worries about the readiness for democracy,
At the same time, the Indian government wasted no time in dealing with organised Communist forces that used violence in the early years after
The poor get displaced by development. The rich get displaced from positions of exclusive power.
But, from time to time, persisting up to the present, there have been pockets of Left revolutionary resistance and rebellion in various part of
But do the vast mass of peoples living in
But what about the material basis of life of these classes, their dignity and respect, their ability to live the life, in Walter Bagehot's phrase, "that becomes a man" or woman? The answer to this question may be summarised under the terms, marginal gain and a somewhat altered set of 'Ds', namely, continued deprivation, deferment and displacement. The marginal gains are tabulated in the declining incidence of poverty and the increasing literacy rates, both of which, however, are contested and are far behind most of the rest of the world.
But deferment for the sake of development is no longer, in the age of globalisation, a justification for continued deprivation, for postponement of the needs and aspirations of
What we have now in
No change can be expected on
On the other hand, the upper classes and castes in
But, more to the point here is the third type of displacement, namely, the ensconcement in Indian society of a hegemonic ideology of militant Hindu nationalism that has displaced the formerly predominant ideology of secular, (culturally) composite nationalism. This ideology, Hindutva, is a form of mystification that aims to provide a substitute, chimerical dignity and respect for the country,
Walter Bagehot believed that the vast population of England or of any country, for that matter, the "ruder sort of men", were incapable of responding in any meaningful way to anything but the various forms of mystification that he called "the theatrical elements" of government, those that appealed to the senses rather than to the mind, to the mystic, occult, obscure, and specious, and those elements appearing to promise "palpable...results". Insofar as India is concerned, there is much to support his argument: the earlier sway of charismatic leaders from Gandhi through Nehru to Indira Gandhi; the later arrival on the Indian political scene—not to mention the American—of movie stars seen as embodiments of gods and goddesses; the development ideology already mentioned above, promising, but never providing "palpable" results for most people, only just enough to sustain the slightest ray of hope; and, always important, but now more important than ever, the ideology of "the nation", of the great new Hindu nation, inspired by its "Hinduness" to greatness.
This new ideology of Hindutva, the ideology of pride in the Hindu people, also involves deferment of hopes, but in this case through their displacement on to the great Hindu nation. The hopes of the people for a better life now must once again be deferred until the Hindu nation achieves unity and strength and contains or demolishes its internal and external enemies (indigenous Muslims, rebellious Kashmiris, and Pakistan in particular). The Hindutva route and the route of liberalisation, globalisation, and a market economy that does away with or minimises subsidies and other state-granted benefits to the poor for the sake of a future growth that will "lift all boats" are quite compatible.
In
The current government in
To conclude, therefore, it seems to me that the time is long past for ending the great celebration of the world's leading "democracies", which persists even in the writings of its most trenchant analysts and critics, in the latter case in the form of, "This is as good as it gets" or "it's better than the alternative". That good is simply not good enough for most of the people of the world. It benefits rather a minority, large in some countries, smaller in others, who sustain their wealth, power, and influence through both conscious manipulation of symbols and through the general processes of mystification mentioned above. The fruits of a half century of mismanagement, loot, and disregard of the needs of ordinary people in contemporary developing countries have already begun to appear in the form of genocide in several African countries, riots, pogroms, and massacres in others, including in the latter case the Indian democracy, and the ever-increasing threat of nuclear catastrophe confronting both the "greatest" and the "world's largest" democracies, the US and India.
(Paul R. Brass is Professor (emeritus) of Political Science and International Studies at the