Time for Intervention

January 26 has a special significance in the annals of both pre- and post-independence India. In 1930 the day was observed as Independence Day by virtue of a resolution adopted at the historic Lahore session of the Indian National Congress at the fag end of the previous year; it was at the session that the premier national organisation had for the first time proclaimed purna swaraj (full independence) as its goal. And within two-and-a-half years after the British quit this country in August 1947 thereby enabling the entire Indian subcontinent to throw off the yoke of foreign rule even though the much-cherished freedom was marred by the vivisection of our territory amid an unimaginable bloodbath wherein countless perished in fratricidal violence, we were able to consolidate our hard-won independence by giving free India its first Constitution and declaring it as a sovereign, democratic Republic (the word ‘socialist’ was added to it some twentyfive years later) on January 26, 1950.

This was a historic event for India as a nation-state sixtyone years ago—it testified to the durability of our independence, sovereignty and the democratic ethos we had all along espoused during our battle for national emancipation and which was enshrined in the Constitution itself. This had a tremendous impact on the newly independent states as well as those striving to rid themselves of colonial domination.

Sixtyone years later what is the state of the nation on the eve of Republic Day 2011? Most depressing, to say the least. Indeed, these words are an understatement as they fail to convey the enormity of the crisis that has gripped India that is Bharat. Two years ago it was written in these columns on January 19, 2009:

The country has doubtless registered spectacular successes in different realms of science and technology and our GDP growth has of late attracted world attention. Nonetheless the neo-liberal paradigm we have unquestioningly embraced as the only means for development in today’s globalised world, while facilitating the rise of a vibrant and upwardly mobile middle class, has accentuated disparities across the nation with many in the countryside forced to endure persisting penury even as the other India shines brighter than ever before completely unconcerned of the misery of Bharat, representing the bulk of our populace. (The Dalit assertion on the one side and the Maoist onslaughts on the other in large tracts of the deprived landmass are the inevitable consequence of this phenomenon.) These apart, the Satyam fraud has once again focussed attention to the murky misdoings of the corporate houses and no amount of protestation of this being an isolated case of delinquency, as is being propagated by certain elements in government, will sell since Satyam’s similarity with Enron’s fate cannot be concealed by any degree of obfuscation. And such developments have also affected the credibility of the media, whose probing eyes had overlooked the kind of fraud Satyam was indulging in precisely because dominant media conglomerates are intrinsically linked to corporate interests in one form or another.

Today, after two years, the disparities between the haves and have-nots have widened beyond measure, the Maoist movement in the tribal hinterland has grown far more than what the government had bargained for when it launched ‘Operation Green Hunt’ to eradicate Leftwing extremism, and instead of one Satyam fraud we are confronted with a series of mega scams emerging one after another (and these show no signs of getting reduced in scale and magnitude). At the same time the nexus between the corporate lobbyists and influential segments of the media engaged in murky dealings to the detriment of national interest has come out in the open as never before, thanks to the Niira Radia tapes exposing the ugly face of both the corporate houses and sections of media practitioners (far more than what the infamous paid news episode revealed).

Several other developments are a matter of considerable concern of late. Skyrocketing prices of essential commodities, especially food products, also manifest in mounting inflation, fuelled by repeated petroleum price hikes, have caused unbearable burden on the aam aadmi based on whose generous support the UPA was able to return to power in 2009.

Democracy is at a discount in large tracts of our landmass. Both in J&K and the North-East the term has lost its meaning—a serious situation in a state that claims to be the world’s largest democracy. In the tribal belt anyone selflessly serving the poor and the needy is branded a Maoist or Maoist sympathiser and prevented from engaging in social work. The injustice meted out to such a personality as Dr Binayak Sen by a lower court in Raipur has provoked universal outrage. Simultaneously Gandhian activist Himanshu Kumar has been banished from Chhattisgarh for having opposed the nefarious ‘Salwa Judum’ campaign of pitting tribals against tribals. There are numerous such instances of attacks on grassroot workers coming to light in recent times; these make a mockery of the fundamental principles of our nationhood.

Alongside corruption, black money is playing havoc with our economy with astronomical sums of unaccounted wealth tucked away in Swiss banks. These have been brought into focus once again courtesy the WikiLeaks. The government of the day has expressed concern over both these phenomena but on both counts the measures being taken to tackle the problems appear to be half-hearted at the best and an eyewash at the worst. No wonder these have come under the Opposition’s sharp attack and criticism.

In fact if one speaks of the political class, there is hardly any political leader of the Right, Centre or Left worthy of emulation in today’s India. They have all compromised themselves—from the PM to the CMs of Karnataka and West Bengal, for instance. At the same time the country is inexorably hurtling towards full scale polarisation resulting in political confrontation between the Treasury Benches and Opposition in Parliament where the winter session saw the unique spectacle of both Houses failing to transact any business owing to the ruling combine-Opposition standoff on the issue of setting up a joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G spectrum scam that has, apart from resulting in the resignation of Telecom Minister A. Raja, placed the PM completely on the backfoot thus impairing his manoeuvrability. The government’s arguments in this regard, despite the strong repartees of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, are hardly convincing based as these are on technicalities that are usually furnished by the babudom and seldom by political figures. The same confrontationist attitude is visible in Karnataka and West Bengal with the ruling conglomerates in both the States having become victims of myopia, albeit for different reasons.

The BJP’s latest ‘tiranga yatra’ from Kolkata to Srinagar with the objective of hoisting the tricolour at Lal Chowk in the J&K capital on Republic Day also falls in the same category of confrontation with the Centre howsoever much it tries to camouflage it by invoking the emotive issue of nationalism at a time when the situation in the border State does not warrant such gimmicks aimed at reaping short-term dividends at the cost of the nation as a whole.

The idea of nation and national interest is totally absent from the thought processes and activities of the political class. An ideal situation for the disruptionist forces, including the Maoists, to have a field day and further their ulterior design of destabilising the polity.

In this dismal setting constructive intervention by healthy sections of the civil society does not brook the slightest delay. For, in the final analysis, they are the only hope for the people at large to save the Republic betrayed as it is by the power-hungry elite representing diverse elements among the vested interests who have launched an all-out onslaught on the basic tenets of our Constitution.
January 25 S.C.