Mainstream WeeklyThe PM addressing the nation from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort emphasized “India is on its way on ‘Reform Express’.” And enunciated ‘seven reform Saptadhara goals’, like, Manufacturing power, Technology and innovation and Defence measures. Laudable announcements but the road map is unclear. He further said, ‘Reforms are to be achieved by conviction not by compulsion’.
But, in the last decade and more, policies have been thrust without consultations on workers, farmers, educationists, etc.. The PM’s new formulation of ‘dimagi naxal’ is an indication of more coercion coming. His speech in SRCC was supposed to address the students and GenZ but it turned out to be a full scale attack on the opposition who he addressed as Phoopha and ‘dimagi Naxal’.
Knowledge Generation
If India is to be on ‘Reform Express’, relevant innovative ideas are required. They evolve and flourish in an environment of critical thinking that enables challenging of existing ideas. Presently, when advances in AI are leading to technical change by the month and not in decades, the societal challenge has become greater than ever. Instead of preparing to meet this challenge, it is often asserted that India had all the knowledge in the past. This is an uncritical and unscientific idea which undermines scientific temper and critical thinking.
Undoubtedly, India was more advanced than many societies in the ancient period. It may also be that authorship of knowledge generated in India in the past has been ascribed to others. But none of this can deny that much knowledge has evolved since those times. Present day life in India runs on technology largely evolved in the advanced nations in the last few centuries and India has become heavily dependent on that. For this lag, the nation pays a heavy price social and political price. This can be set right only if India accelerates the generation of socially relevant knowledge through critical thinking.
Continuum of Ideas
PM’s repeated branding of critics as ‘dimagi Naxals’ puts a spanner in critical thinking. While initially it was said that this is not to target the critics of the establishment and the opposition, now the PM has in his SRCC speech made it clear that he is indeed targeting them.
The critics by pointing to the deficiencies of existing knowledge and systems enable reform. They do it in spite of getting brick bats from the ruling establishment. Critics lie along a continuum from suggesting reform within the existing system to those suggesting drastic change. So, some only pose an intellectual challenge, while some others desire a complete overhaul.
Some believe overhaul will only come through the barrel of the gun - Naxals did in 1967 in Naxalbari. The PM declared that this armed insurrection stands defeated, but, the underlying thinking persists. The PM wants it to be rooted out when he says, ‘We have to find and isolate those with a naxal mentality’. This is a sweeping and ill-defined formulation?
What is it?
What is ‘naxal mentality’? A critic of government’s policies or the political opposition wanting change can be so labelled. Especially, in these contentious times when ideas are routinely twisted out of context to give a political hue to corner the opposition - whether it be Mathura and Kashi, Article 370 or Vande Matram. A person maybe lynched by declaring any meat as cow’s meat. A journalist going to investigate a rape case can be called a naxal and jailed for long. Participants in a protest can be jailed alleging a conspiracy being hatched. Raising the issue of temple theft can be called anti-Hindu. Objecting to mass bribery to get votes can be labelled anti-women. Mocking the PM can be cause for prosecution. In UP, activists helping workers mobilize and those pointing to grim conditions in schools have been arrested under draconian laws. The list is endless.
‘Dimagi naxal’ is a dog whistle in today’s fraught environment. It makes it easier for a compliant police to arrest since nothing need be proved. Cases could be launched all over the country. Already the process has been the punishment for critics and it will get worse. The chilling effect on intellectual climate in the country will worsen. Already intellectuals have been largely silenced and more will go quiet. In Universities and Colleges. holding seminars and talks that critically analyse government policies and actions have become difficult. Even in a premier university like JNU which has been in the forefront of resistance, this has been the case. Recently the booking of a hall for a book discussion was cancelled the day before the event.
Intellectual Climate
Academic appointments at the top are based on alignment with the ruling establishment so that they can in turn appoint faculty aligned with the ruling establishment. Faculty which is there from earlier and may be critical is harassed through denying promotions, not granting leave for academic work and bypassing them for appointments to leadership positions in the institution. They get frustrated and that impacts their research and teaching.
Can critical thinking survive such a stultifying atmosphere? Faculty appointed for compliance, bring with them a non-critical mindset which gets reflected in their teaching and research. And, they discourage questioning by students. But young people are bound to question and break existing taboos since they are in the process of developing their world view. For that they will be branded ‘dimagi naxals’ and persecuted.
Justice Bhuyan of Supreme Court recently said, ‘In a democracy the right to question is not an act of defiance. It is an essential expression of citizenship … and constitutional responsibility’. He added, ‘… when students ask questions… they cannot be threatened with punitive action … That is a misuse of power and office’.
The Naxal movement burst on the scene in the late 1960s due to the youth disillusionment with growing inequality and rising corruption, preventing the gains of development reaching the poor. This was contrary to the expectation of ‘tryst with destiny’ at Independence which was ‘… to end poverty, ignorance, disease, and inequality among all people’ and which placed on society a ‘… heavy responsibility to serve the common people and build an inclusive society’.
The youth questioned how long were people expected to wait, especially when the rich were visibly becoming richer. Even the mainstream branded the government as ‘Tata Birla ki Sarkar’.
Research requires learning to critique existing ideas to generate new knowledge. A scientist has to critically analyse her research problem. That is what fosters a research environment. A Social Scientist has to learn to question orthodoxy. If questioning gets ingrained in researchers, it becomes their second nature; and it does not stop at their disciplinary boundary. They will point to lacunae in the education policy. They will talk of mis-governance in their institution, admissions policy, funding of research, etc. And, for that they would get labeled ‘dimagi naxals’ even though in good faith they are helping build a better society.
Conclusion
Systematically the ruling dispensation has sought to curtail criticism and branding critics as ‘dimagi naxals’ is another way of doing that. In the 1970s, the ruling dispensation had argued that it needed to control education, police and the judiciary, to say in power indefinitely – a ring of Orwell’s 1984.
Presently, the ruling establishment has managed to substantially capture academia, media, police and judiciary. Yet they seem worried. They control Parliament and most of the States of India. They are able to push their agenda substantially. So, why do they lack the confidence to face criticism from those at the margins? Clearly, there is insecurity about their hold over power which is also reflected in the repeated invocation of ‘Viksit Bharat’ and ‘Vishwaguru’.
India is lagging behind US, China and other advanced countries in technology. This truncates its strategic autonomy viz.-a-viz. these powers. The young are voting with their feet and migrating legally or illegally to other countries. If India was indeed a ‘Vishwaguru ’, youth from other countries should have been queuing up to come to India.
‘Dimagi naxal’, a dog whistle, is a manifestation of insecurity of the ruling regime. It is designed to silence political opposition and reduce accountability of rulers. If that succeeds, the ills plaguing the nation - policy failures, growing corruption, rising inequality and alienation and uncivilised living conditions for the marginalised - will further aggravate. Its chilling effect on critical thinking will further damage the already weak research environment in institutions, thereby undermining R&D and any chance of catching up with the advanced countries to become a ‘Vishwaguru’. The rulers have a clear choice before them.
(Author: Arun Kumar, Retd. Prof. of Economics JNU; Former President of JNU Teachers’ Association is the author of ‘Indian Economy since Independence: Persisting Colonial Disruption’. 2013. and edited the volume, “Challenges facing Indian Universities. 2003)