Opinion Politics as morality play

In an odd way,this oddly judged moralising was a little bit on display in Ratan Tata’s interviews post Radia tapes. He veered between individual judgments,defending the prime minister for instance,and general denunciations of India as a banana republic. What you did not get was a deep analysis or acknowledgement of the structural relationship between state and capital in India,a relationship that makes everything from lobbying to influence peddling almost inevitable. The one truth that has come home very palpably during the last few days is how deeply the state structures capital in India. But this is not just in sectors that require a form of licensing like real estate or telecom.

The state still has inordinate power over capital. Business is vulnerable at the hands of the state at so many levels: at every moment it is taxed,licensed,stamped,assessed,audited,authorised,given permission. Liberalisation and reform have helped alter the structure of corruption in some sectors. But the blunt truth is that the state has such an extraordinary ability to convert even basic procedural rights into discretionary entitlements that we should not be too sanguine about corruption disappearing on account of reform alone. But the one larger consequence of this is how timid Indian capital still is in relation to the state. The horror is not whether a particular industrialist was lobbying for a particular minister; the deeper horror is how the private sector is still so vulnerable,at every level,to the state. This is one reason why Indian capital has still not been able to act as a “class for itself” as it were; why it still cannot openly take on the political class. The picture that has emerged is not one of capital buying out the state,it is still one of capital in an abject state of dependence,where their very life depends upon getting politics right. But instead of focusing on this structural issue of power,all of us,including Ratan Tata,focused on the morality play.

It is also easy to imagine a politician chuckling at revelations about journalism. To use a colourful Hindi expression,all of us — capital,the fourth estate,civil society — have been exposed as “doodh petay bacche” when it comes to understanding how power operates. The genius of a genuine politician,as Trollope so vividly portrayed,was to make the exercise of power sweet,by making it appear as if they really were under someone else’s sway. They have artfully done that to capital,making it look as if capital rules,whereas the reverse is true; they have artfully done that to journalists and the chattering classes,by playing along with their sense of self-importance; and then they have artfully done this to the people,by always making it appear that the people are supreme.

In any morality play,politicians have a genuine asset. They understand the play of necessity,opportunity and chance much better than contrived certainties of vice and virtue. It makes them more genuinely open,humble and capable of self-reinvention. We have all been clean bowled,because we were playing the game of self-righteousness,arrogantly assuming that our virtues could compensate for our structural complicities. No wonder,what should have been an interrogation of political responsibility has quickly turned into an indictment of society.

Trollope had another great insight about politics and the media. In an age of publicity it is almost impossible to control the meaning of your own utterances. If you don’t say much,meaning is read into your silence. If you defend yourself,the suspicion of “thou protest too much” lingers like a bad odour. We still assume that some kind of public accounting in the full glare of the media reveals the truth. Indian media was under the illusion that it is the sunlight illuminating dark corners. Most politicians,and thankfully most voters,see it more as a spectator sport. There are two ways of dealing with this. One is to play along as most politicians do;

the other is to maintain supreme detachment from it.

It is perhaps not an accident that our most successful politician,Manmohan Singh,roundly ignores the media,engaging with it in a public space as infrequently as is possible. He concentrates singlemindedly on his choices and priorities,on that play of necessity and chance that defines politics. He has artfully free ridden on media’s simple-minded obsession with finding virtuous characters in a morality play; that part he fulfils beautifully by virtue of his stoic integrity. His supposed weakness,his refusal to take public responsibility for his government’s sins of omission or commission,has turned out to be an enormous political advantage in a climate where we don’t ask institutional and structural questions. He has most profoundly understood the deep truth of our times. All of us,the media or capital,may think we have the last word. But only a genuine politician has the last laugh.

The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi

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