The placard wars

At best, one hopes that these campaigns are simply an outpouring of our that is, India8217;s natural flair for entrepreneurship remember India has more dollar billionaires than China and drama we in India produce more films than Hollywood rather than something more serious. In these times of great economic fragility, perhaps this is a way for various businesses to corner the market, and boost advertising. And for publicity seekers, what better way can there be to become famous or even more famous than they already are than to appear in public for wearing a strong conscience on the sleeve.

One can be cynical about such motives, one can laugh about such motivation, but one would hardly worry about it. However, if one believes that the campaigns are genuinely driven by anger, anguish and national interest then there is more to worry about. Why?

First, some of the campaigns are naiuml;ve 8212; do they seriously believe that ordinary citizens are in a position to directly tackle terror independent of the political/governmental process? An underlying rhetoric of the naiuml;ve campaigns is a strong desire to depoliticise the fight against terror. Numerous television shows of the less alarmist kind have been peddling this line. To fight the better fight against terror, we need to engage in a vibrant political debate not like A.R. Antulay8217;s shameful conspiracy theory though because there are indeed many different methods and different policies to fight terror; and without debate and discussion how can we arrive at the best consensus? So while we need our politicians to be constructive we don8217;t want them to avoid difficult debates.

That apart, there is a strong case for intelligence and security agencies to be more not less accountable to the political process, and for bringing them into public scrutiny. Too often, in India, security and intelligence agencies hide behind the veil of 8220;national security interest8221; to hide their failings. After all, even the CIA in the US submits to congressional oversight. To the extent that depoliticisation is needed, it is needed in the functional autonomy of security agencies 8212; politicians shouldn8217;t be allowed to micromanage appointments, processes, etc. But the depoliticisation case as it is being made in the naiuml;ve campaigns misses all these nuances.

Second, some of the campaigns are dangerous 8212; some take the word 8220;war8221; very seriously indeed, often forgetting that only the state actually has the authority to declare war. But even if it8217;s more in the realm of rhetoric, it is problematic. Some of these campaigns would like citizens to become vigilantes, without thinking through the likely consequences of armed civilians running amuck in the streets of Mumbai or Delhi at the slightest provocation. The experience of vigilante groups like the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh or the right-wing paramilitaries of Colombia both set up to fight Maoist terror should teach us better. Other campaigns would like the army or police or a dictator of some sort to take charge, not realising that all of them are part of the same institutional rot that the political process allegedly is. Without democratic accountability, we will be worse off.

It is now turning into a peculiar war between dastardly non-state actors at the terrorist end and loud and naiuml;ve non-state actors at the civilisational end. The problem with terrorists is that there are no rules of engagement, at least from their end. The problem for civil society in India is that it hasn8217;t yet found a way to constructively engage, and positively, the political/policy process. Indian civil society groups are fairly good at raising alarms, at venting anger, particularly the anti-establishment kind, but lose their way thereafter. There are no institutional or credible routes to channel discontent into actionable change.

Part of the problem is that many civil society groups tend to be completely disconnected from the electoral process in India. We never see the kind of mobilisation that happens in the US 8212; non-political actors as small as social networking groups, as we saw in Obama8217;s mobilisation, play a crucial role in this. Since most civil society groups in India are essentially middle/upper-middle class, their disconnect is basically a part of the larger problem of the cocoon-like existence the middle class has created for itself 8212; prosperous and secure in their own worlds, without too much of a care about the dirty world of Indian politics until an attack shakes that existence up.

Civil society also suffers from a lack of direct intellectual influence on policy. We don8217;t have enough high-quality, independently funded, non-governmental, think tanks and policy groups which could channel public discontent or present credible policy alternatives before the government. The US on the other hand has a vibrant network of such think tanks and independent policy groups, which have a direct influence on government policy.

Think about this. Other countries, prominent democracies, have been hit by terror too, arguably more dramatically and more unexpectedly than we have. Yet, one can8217;t recall any major instances of such civil society hysteria in either the US after 9/11or in the UK after 7/7. There is constructive criticism which gets properly channelled and communicated to the relevant policy-makers through either the electoral/political process or through independent intellectual discourse.

There is a possible parallel here with the most far-reaching policy reform of recent times: economic liberalisation. It took much pressure from industry interest groups, and strong intellectual leadership, properly channelled, to start and then sustain the process. We certainly need internal security reform now. Well-directed public dissatisfaction can enable radical change. Misdirected public anger will simply prolong the rot. Civil society needs to wake up to this.

dhiraj.nayyarexpressindia.com