Opinion Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Death of the dissident

But in an odd way, the relative lack of interest in his fate reminds us of an important political phenomenon of our times: The death of the dissident. Of course, there are still plenty of figures around whose individual courage in the face of authoritarian repression is exemplary, and who are paying a high price for their belief in liberty. But in much of the 20th century, the dissident was an iconic figure. The term itself gained currency in the context of the authoritarianism of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. And some of the most famous dissidents of the time came from that context: Vaclav Havel (Kara-Murza is a recipient of the Havel Prize), Andrei Sakharov, even Solzhenitsyn. But there were other contexts too: Nelson Mandela in South Africa; Aung San Suu Kyi (before she decimated her own reputation on human rights). Or going further back, even Bertrand Russell, whose political reputation was in part cemented by being a pacifist in World War 1 and going to prison for it. Liu Xiaobo from China was one of the last major figures in this vein.

The elevation to the status of an iconic dissident is, of course, conditioned by political factors. During the Cold War the West had political uses for these dissidents. At this moment how one thinks of Liu Xiaobo in part depends on how we relate to the Chinese political experience. Dissident construction has always been conditioned by the demands of geo-politics. There is, of course, the personal history and charisma of the dissident, or in some cases their ability to personify a movement, as in the case of Mandela. There was the sheer literary and philosophical might of Havel or Xiaobo or even Russell. But despite all this, there was a grudging acceptance that the importance of these figures transcended immediate ideological divides or instrumental uses. Even those who sought to imprison them acknowledged their moral force, and the fact that they were part of the quest for human values. Their attraction often was just the fact that they were at the receiving end of power: The combination of their powerlessness and steadfastness, their commitment to a baseline of moral decency, to point to injustice but not exude resentment, is exactly what made them attractive.

But while we live in an age when “strongmen” are elevated to iconic status, it is harder for dissidents to become that focal point for a discussion of freedom.

There could be many reasons behind this: We are just a much more cynical age, where behind every dissident we suspect a human failing. It is easier to doubt the dissident than see in them the locus of hope and courage. And certainly the experience of people like Aung San Suu Kyi, the failure of openings like the Arab Spring, contributed to the disillusionment. Or we are in an age of instant celebrity. The gravitas of a dissident being imprisoned, or an impassioned plea for liberty, is dissipated in the overload of information and counter information. Even that heroic moment of young people taking off their hijab in Iran vanished from global consciousness quickly. Perhaps we are more attuned to the instrumental uses of dissident figures. I suspect much of the world does not care about Kara-Murza because it sees the Russia question entirely through the geo-political lens. One of the oddities of the Cold War era, even in countries like India, was that the conflict was understood in ideological terms: At least there were competing universalisms at stake.

It could be that the death of the dissident signals a deeper shift. We are living in a global culture so attuned to statism and nationalism that the dissident is not seen as an iconic figure in the contest between liberty and authority, or peace and war. They are not seen as warriors in the war between freedom and repression. They occupy the space of treason against the nation. The Seventies was, in many ways, a much more turbulent time. But in those days, amidst all the anarchy, there was still an instinctive discomfort with the state. Simply because the state sent you to jail, you became a dissident icon. Think of George Fernandes during the Emergency. The act of sending him to jail made him, at least for a while, a dissident hero; you could win an election simply by being in jail. You were a dissident simply by being at the receiving end of the state. We liked strong leaders. But we never gave up the thought that liberty versus authority, not nation versus treason, was the principal drama of political life.

Think of the contrast with the present. Scores of idealistic young people are at the receiving end of the state. Much of society’s response is either to buy into the idea that mere resistance to the state in the name of the constitution or some higher values is a form of treason. Or there is a kind of condescension, as if dissidence is some kind of failure of rationality. Don’t you understand how the power structure has shifted? How could you be so imprudent in challenging authority?

Kara-Murza spoke as a historian. But he would have realised that history, more than anything else, bends to the logic of power and collective narcissism. Between blind devotion to the nation and/or a pure logic of instrumentalism, the dissident — with no power but his or her words — has become an oddity. Is the dissident as an object of adoration dead?

The writer is Contributing Editor at The Indian Express