Individual acts

We will probably never know his name. We don8217;t know whether he is alive or was shot in retribution. But this month, when China continued to hold out against allowing foreign journalists to broadcast live from Tiananmen Square during the Beijing Olympics, a photograph still in circulation came immediately to mind. Of that Unknown Rebel, also called the Tank Man, standing, bag in hand, as a column of PLA tanks advanced on June 5, 1989, in the Chinese military8217;s eventual crackdown on the pro-democracy protests. Commentators differ on the number of protesters eventually killed, but with that single act of defiance caught on camera, the Unknown Rebel made the desire for the institutions of democracy an inerasable Chinese reality.

Institutions are critical to democracy to prevent arbitrary acquisition and exercise of power by individuals. However, individuals are equally important in asserting the autonomy and credibility of institutions. This week, as Somnath Chatterjee staves off pressure from his party to step down as Lok Sabha speaker, his individual act of defiance has emphasised standards for his office in a way never done before. Whether he is eventually made to succumb to CPM pressure or not, Chatterjee, and the debate he has provoked, have iterated the norms that make his office special. His defiance, by silence and leaked correspondence, is welcome reinforcement of the norm that the office of speaker be protected from the partisan interests of the party on whose ticket he had been elected.

This controversy is certainly not of Chatterjee8217;s making. But his role has been creditable. Mavericks often remake the office, and set a pattern. In the 8217;90s, T.N. Seshan went to highly self-publicised lengths to assert the autonomy of the Election Commission. His long digressions on his personal likes and dislikes apart, the effort anticipated the need for an honest election arbiter in the noisiness of multi-party contests to come. In 2002, the then chief election commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh, resisted pressure from Narendra Modi to advance Gujarat assembly elections in less than perfect conditions. And this year, N. Gopalaswami refused to countenance pressure to postpone the Karnataka elections on the pretext that the delimitation exercise was not yet complete. But perhaps the most striking self-assertion was A.P. J. Abdul Kalam8217;s. In recent decades, Rashtrapati Bhavan, in agreement and in disagreement with the Centre, had often invited allegations of bias. Kalam did some unusual things too 8212; like signing the midnight declaration of president8217;s rule in Bihar in 2005. But he remained unstained by charges of partisanship, and set a standard Pratibha Patil will be measured against as India heads for a general election within the next year.