Author: Debraj Mookerjee
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 21, 2003
Democracy, the unchallenged signpost
of modernity, the apotheosis of all who are progressive, has become the
target of a sharpshooter. We all know the rhetorical power of the word
democracy. It is the modern world's "open sesame", clearing the path for
all on whom it showers its approbation, be he a Bush, a Modi or a Laloo.
In The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home (the US, that is)
and Abroad, Fareed Zakaria, born in India and brought up in his early years
here, makes a strong case for interrogating the hallowed status of democracy,
and his pot-shots leave big enough holes on the deified altar of the world's
most celebrated political system to prompt debate.
More on Zakaria's book later. What
is of relevance to us back home is the question of the great Indian state
and the legitimacy it seemingly enjoys to do and claim all the things it
does. What gives it such unassailable rights over our wealth, lands and
resources? From where does it draw the strength to write the rules by which
our lives are governed? Wherein, indeed, lies that source of all power,
of which the state is seen as the rightful shareholder, and we, the governed,
mystified supplicants?
We do not ask these questions often.
When we do, we are branded woolly-headed liberals at best, or else senseless
anarchists. And yet, those who pillage the land, subvert the very essence
of all that is good in common humanity, and line their bloated self-image
with the trappings of pelf and privilege, are allowed to be the legitimate
standard bearers of the state. Surely, there is something wrong here.
We have ceased to inquire after
first causes, and we refuse to consider that which is (and importantly,
can be) the right way to govern our lives. We allow bad people to rule
us without even the discomfort of having to face rude questions. And continue
to allow them, as we have for the years since our Independence, to claim
the state for themselves, and perpetrate the worst form of abuse on the
very people the state is meant to serve and offer a sense of common cause.
As also argued in Zakaria's book,
the question of the power of the state became relevant the moment it broke
from the church in the West. Even while the king was considered sovereign,
others sought to have him share his authority, as is clearly evident from
the early example of the Magna Carta. In the summer of 1215, a crude bill
of rights was drawn up by the rebellious barons of England, to which King
John affixed his seal in Runnymede.
That document marked the weakening
of the sovereign, and since then, up to the regicide of Charles I in 1649,
a tussle ensued between the nobles and the state. Why? Because as in the
rest of Europe, and unlike kings in other continents, the English King
really had no resources of his own. The feudal lords were needed to supply
men and cash to fight wars and/or keep the wheels of the state moving.
Finally, with emerging ideas of
modernity attendant upon the European Enlightenment in the late-17th and
18th centuries, and cataclysmic events like the French Revolution (1789),
individual liberty and natural rights became central concerns, with republican
ideas rendering the status of the monarch merely titular. The tenuous power
of the state was considered just that-tenuous.
Not argued vigorously by Zakaria,
but implied in his thesis is the fact that the 20th century, with the parallel
development of 'liberal' democracies, relegitimised the notion of the state,
for it was now reviewed as the republican will of the people. The point
being stressed here is that we must not accept the a priori suzerainty
of the state, as is sought to be foisted on us. It is individual liberty,
and the principles of liberalism as espoused by the European Enlightenment,
that have resulted in the modern legitimacy of the state.
In all this democracy has played
a big role, for it is the manifest instrument through which such a claim
is argued. Zakaria tears apart the notion with alacrity by proving how
the tag of democracy legitimises regimes that do not practise constitutional
liberalism, whereas on the other hand seemingly non-democratic rulers practise
it. The rule of law prevails in Singapore, which is not a democracy; sadly,
it does not even in the world's largest democracy-India.
Democracy prevails in states like
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, we are told. Why? Because people queue up once
every five (at times sooner) to vote. They do so to make us believe their
will is imprinted on the state to which they subject their will in the
belief that it will ensure the rule of law, create opportunities for their
economic well-being, protect their rights and not treat them arbitrarily.
It is because of this implied belief that we accord venerated status to
those who are allowed to rule through the electoral system.
In early societies, the just were
venerated because they were trusted to do that which was best for those
who reposed faith in them. This is the implied paradigm that sanctions
the special status of the state and those who uphold its pillars.
In India, the state is very powerful.
After all, it is meant to be a socialist state. Or so the Constitution
tells us. A socialist state controls all the forces of production, or so
Marx and Lenin tell us. It also owns all land. It lays down the rules for
economic activity. And it ensures redistribution of wealth so that those
underprivileged by history are given just recompense.
One could argue, as many do, and
as this writer has often done, against the demerits of socialist state.
But the Indian state is not even a socialist state, nor has ever been.
When liberalisation happened in the 1980s under Rajiv Gandhi and got formalised
by Manmohan Singh in 1991, economic power merely shifted from a closed
group of capitalists to the emergent middle classes. The so-called Nehruvian
socialist state was just a cover for monopolistic cabals that carved the
market out among themselves without being subject to the exacting competitiveness
of a market economy. The ordinary people, which includes us by the way,
gained nothing from the state in return for the special privilege we had
accorded it.
Look around any Indian city or town.
The best real estate is owned by the Government (in the name of the state).
Look at Delhi; from Chanakyapuri to RK Puram, the state owns prime property
(in your name, by the way). And what happens to such property? Government
officers live in them. Just like that. Whether these occupants pay taxes
on perks for these accommodations (or for telephones, orderlies, gardeners,
chauffeurs, office cars, etc, like executives in private firms now do)
is another matter. When private citizens colonise land and develop it to
a condition where genuine civic living is possible, the state brands their
efforts illegal, as in the case of Sainik Farms in South Delhi. Go back
to first causes. Is this not preposterous?
Public land as a concept developed
with the idea of the commons, as opposed to the notion that the king owned
all land. In India today, there are no commons. The commons belong to the
state. When groups of people do what the state has been doing for its own
(and its apparatchiks') interest, their activities are labelled illegal.
Why?
In India, the state does not work
for the people, nor is it of them. It is there only in their name, and
engaged, with some help from those who are its 'legitimate' instruments,
in the business of making people's lives miserable. We must ask ourselves:
For how long will we respect, or even trust, a state that does not belong
to the people in whose name it is apparently upheld?
