Re-nourishing the Indian polity

Harish KHARE

The terrorist has no faith or interest in democracy but the citizens have a stake in the healthier and effective functioning of our democratic institutions. The post-Mumbai mood presents us an opportunity to remedy habits and ideas that hinder the fight against terror.

Now that “Mumbai 2008” has jolted us all out of our comfortable prejudices and our public discourse appears to have realised that it is time to move beyond failed slogans and fake poseurs, it is time to state a few enduring fundamentals of Indian political realities: (1) bad politics invariably produces bad governance; (2) bad governance, in turn, reduces the political process’s capacity to have demands, grievances, and anger debated, negotiated and possibly dissolved; and, (3) this decline in the political process’s efficacy dries up space and incentive for compromises as also for fair play, inducing antagonists to recourse to the idiom of violence.

A failed state is characterised by its public institutions’ inability to prevent an ever enlarging circle of intolerance, violence and disorder, overwhelming the forces and voices of reasonableness and equity. The “Mumbai 2008” became deeply disquieting because suddenly most Indian citizens understood how precariously close we seem to have come to acquiring some, if not all, the attributes of a failed state.

It has taken a massive terrorist assault to sober us up. How will this moment of collective sobriety last? Can we possibly find new ways of conducting our political quarrels and quests so as to re-nourish polity in a wholesome manner as also to re-invigorate the state?

Hopefully by the time the current Parliament session ends we shall have a new anti-terror legal regime in place. The enactment of the new law itself would be a signal to citizen at home and the terrorist abroad that the Indian state is concentrating on correcting the administrative and legal infirmities. The post-Mumbai mood may also see a massive expansion of specialised security forces, bridging in a small way the gap between the terrorist’s advantage of time and place and the policeman’s disadvantage of routine and law.

But the new and tougher laws in themselves may not be enough to protect us from individuals and groups who do not wish well. Our vulnerabilities can be minimised but not totally eliminated.

In addition to stringent laws, more battalions of commandos, and with even curbs on some of our civil liberties, what we need to do is to make a conscious departure from the prevailing public morals and manners, which cumulatively produce an overload of bad politics and baser instincts.

While it is entirely incumbent upon every sensible citizen to caution against the current anti-politician mood, instigated so provocatively in the post-Mumbai days, it is equally incumbent upon the political class to satisfy the citizen that it can operate the democratic processes so as to generate a morally desirable wholesomeness in our public realm.

After Mumbai 2008 the foremost requirement is to reinforce central institutions and services, to augment the Union’s capacities to protect the nation’s territorial integrity.

The challenge is to see to it that democracy itself does not become an obstacle to regeneration of governing skills and capacities. In other words, it needs to be ensured that political fragmentation does not hamper effective governance at the Centre. The coalition format at the Centre will need to be revisited; it is obvious at the minimum that what is required is a new protocol of putting together a working majority, inescapably to be cobbled with regional parties.

The role of these regional parties has been far from helpful. It is not to suggest that the so-called regional parties lack in patriotism and in any way are less committed to national interests and welfare; but, it is possible to argue that the way the UPA and earlier the NDA operationalise(d) the central authority the presence of some regional players produces dissonance at the core of governing arrangement.

While it is unrealistic to demand that the regional players and leaders change overnight their limited priorities and personalised prejudices, the “national” parties have an obligation to insist on certain minimum code of conduct from the coalition partners. The national parties will need to devise the art of resisting the temptation to team up with each and every one bit player only to purse this or that leader’s prime ministerial ambition.

There is nothing inherently wrong in pursuit of such ambitions but what is often troublesome is that in the process the national leaders and parties allow coalition partners to grab enough space to effectively veto optimal decisions and policies. An ideal polity must allow space for regional and sub-regional voices to express themselves, it is counter-productive to let localised connections and considerations override national ideas and institutions.

In the post-Mumbai mood the expectation is that the political class will not permit its narrow electoral calculations to hamper the fight against terror. The onus is not on the political class alone.

The rest of the constitutional system and the civil society will need to make many changes in their institutional ways if the polity has to be re-nourished. For a start, we can begin by exploring new ways of conducting our public discourse.

There has to be a moratorium on the culture of controversy, which puts a premium on converting every debate into a confrontation; the media will have to de-wean itself from its grand conceit that its biases and prejudices are more representative than those of the democratic classes.

Much of the media is given to manufacturing “public opinion” spuriously, often unwittingly but also often knowingly playing favourites among political parties and leaders.

These traits were at work much before “Mumbai, 2008” and because large sections of the media continue to suffer from institutional arrogance, it was only natural that the coverage of the terrorist assault should have become a matter of public concern.

It is not so very difficult to rectify this increasingly counter-productive culture of public discourse, provided the media, mostly unaccountable and entirely non-transparent, is induced to get down from its institutional high horse. Media is not and cannot be larger than the public good, however you slice it.

Once those who take critical decisions in the critical sections of the media, old and new, decide to unlearn a few of their practices, they will themselves want to move away from the inanities and absurdities now being dished out in the name of the people’s right to know. Political debates and reports need not to be so blatantly biased.

In particular, we need to disenthrall ourselves of the Narendra Modi variety of “he-man” leadership.

There seems to be a curious itch to dignify every single utterance as words of wisdom and statesmanship of the Gujarat Chief Minister. The man even believes he can lecture Dr. Manmohan Singh on economics. Yet sections of the media, print and electronic, gave play to his views what the Prime Minister should or should not do in the face of global economic meltdown.

The new culture of public discourse will also need to put the onus of fighting terror on all sections of the society.

We all have to live up to our obligations as citizens.

The Mumbai, 2008 has tragically demonstrated that even the rich and the powerful can become the terrorist target. If we seriously get down to the business of closing loopholes in the security infrastructure, then all of us will necessarily learn to subject ourselves to inconveniences and sacrifices.

The age of special treatment, privilege access, and exemptions must end. For instance, our privileged classes - political, business and media - make so much fuss about basic security drill at airports and public buildings but uncomplainingly submit themselves to much more stringent searches and questions when they visit America and Europe.

We cannot possibly demand that the policeman does his job honestly and competently while we force him to honour those who claim exemptions from laws and procedures. A new mindset of alert and responsible citizenry has become the need of the hour. Above all, we shall have to re-examine our political habits that endlessly and mindlessly encourage a disrespect for public authority.

Democracy is a partnership between those have to operate the levers of the state and the citizens. We need to make a distinction between (legitimate) dissent and (undesirable) disregard of the citizen’s obligations.

The state does have a duty to ensure the citizen’s safety against vendors of violence, but this charter cannot be discharged without an active involvement of responsive citizens in restoring the legitimacy and popular acceptance of our public institutions. Only then can we expect the citizens and voters to punish those who produce bad politics and reward those who strive for good governance.

(The Hindu)