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Journalism of Courage
I am the state!’’ thundered Louis XIV, emperor of France also known as the Sun King. So might declare our own sun kings and sun queens. Today Mayawati can smash 137 cases against Mulayam Singh Yadav, rampage around UP erecting Ambedkar statues, transfer bureaucrats on sheer fancy and nobody can say a word. Jayalalithaa can turn a legal armoury on journalists for ‘‘daring’’ to criticise her. She can try and bulldoze a historical building for her own purposes, slam Pota against political rivals and nobody can do a thing.
Laloo Prasad Yadav’s mythological (and violent) lathi rally in Patna, resulted in citizens being stranded on the streets because state transport buses had been requisitioned for the RJD carnival. During Mulayam Singh Yadav’s cycle rally, official black cat commandos scurried alongside his cycle, functioning as the Samajwadi Party chief’s private chowkidars. Shahnawaz Hussain, minister for civil aviation, likes to keep flights waiting while he takes long lunches. He has a personal staff of about 50 people, all of whose salaries are paid by the taxpayer. Union Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma manhandles Jet Airways staff because he feels that there are too many delays. Welcome to a process which has been described as the ‘‘privatisation of the public realm’’. Regional potentates, armed with primordially loyal vote banks, often using violence as a legitimate political tool, have become democratically elected dictators.
Privatisation of the public realm began with the Congress. The Congress was guilty of transforming the party apparatus into a servant of The Family and Indira Gandhi has often been called a democratic dictator. Yet, in the years of a strong national party, there was at least a lakshmanrekha, some semblance of respect for the law and the belief that the people’s vote would redress wrongs. But, today, the privatisation of the public realm has meant that even the people’s vote can be easily squandered and misused. Last February, Mayawati fought the UP elections against the BJP, yet ended up allying with the BJP to form a government. The people’s will? Who cares!
So what is the ‘‘public realm’’? The public realm is the state, the judiciary, the law and order system, the Election Commission, the state broadcaster, the schools, the cultural institutions that belong to the state and therefore to the public and exist to serve the Constitution’s version of the ‘‘public good’’. When this public realm is ‘‘privatised’’, that is when caste, family and personal rivalries conquer these institutions that belong to the people, then democracy ceases to exist. The autonomy of the state structure, after all, is a pre-condition of democracy, but if the state is simply parcelled out between private tribal and caste chieftains then simply being a citizen brings no rights. One has to either be aligned to one or the other tribal militia, to get opportunities, jobs and money.
In the absence of a strong central party, caste and regional nationalism become larger than the government. This is seen in the BSP in UP, the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Mulayam, Laloo or even Digvijay Singh’s alleged ‘‘interference’’ in state electoral rolls. The plebeian politicians, once India’s great hope compared to the elite politics of our feudal neighbours, are now poised to convert democracy into monarchy. The Yadavs were the democratic sons of the soil whose authentic actions would finally banish the upper castes of the Congress. But sons-of-the-soil politics rather than strengthening democratic institutions looks as if it is subordinating them to monarchical personality cults.
Mayawati’s epic legal action against Mulayam Singh is a supreme example of the privatisation of the public realm. In the days of Congress majorities, when there was a strong central government, Article 356 was used and misused to set aside troublesome state governments and impose president’s rule. But today, with weak central leaderships, crucially dependent on local allies, regional queens like Mayawati and Jayalalithaa can simply run amok. No laws constrain them. They are accountable to no one. Mayawati is the leader of a fiercely loyal clan and insists that she is not just the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh but the patron saint of dalits. When the state becomes harnessed in the service to a particular clan, then it ceases to be a servant of the people and becomes a private militia. No wonder violent rhetoric is today considered legitimate behaviour. ‘‘Muh tod jawab denge!’’ ‘‘Hamesha ke liye awaz band kar denge!’’
In fact, a crucial result of the privatisation of the public realm is the legitimisation of violence. Today, violence is the preferred form of settling disputes with the ruler taking on the role of an a battle commander. The gun, the lathi, the trishul, the communal riot and the political murder have become legitimate means of securing political goals. After all, if the state is the private property of a particular clan, then the clan will naturally even risk bloodshed to defend it, just as any individual might murder to safeguard family property.
There are other examples of the privatisation of the public realm. When Murli Manohar Joshi takes steps to Hinduise education, he is forgetting the fact that public educational institutions cannot be warriors in his personal crusade against foreign imperialism. The minister for HRD is welcome to practise sanskritic traditions and endlessly study the Aryans, but why should the public realm—that is state sponsored schools and school textbooks—become hostage to Joshiji’s private Vedic fantasies?
The public realm should be value neutral and represent all sections because it exists to serve a diverse society and provide opportunities for everybody to get rich and educated. But while the crucially necessary privatisation of the economy is being stalled, leaders are busy privatising public life. In fact, the very concept of public life seems to be unknown. Ask Mayawati her concept of public life. Her likely answer will be: Public life is me! Perhaps Mulayam, Mayawati, Laloo, and Jayalalithaa, among others, can be sent on a summer training camp, made to consult dictionaries and understand the difference between “private property” and the “public realm”.
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