Mumbai attack and the elite tirade against democracy
The English media (particularly channels) have suddenly got very angry with politicians. It's a different matter that the way the bureaucracy and the media have responded to the blasts is much worse than politicians.
The only people who have actually quit their chairs are politicians. Not a single napping Babu or cop (sufficiently discredited after the MASSIVE intelligence failure) or a single journalist (roundly condemned for sensational, insensitive coverage) has quit. The reason is not that saints take to politics and sinners to the media or babudom. The reason is that while Babus and journos are answerable to their seniors alone, the politician is answerable to every citizen -- be he a raja or bhikhari. This is the greatest strength of democratic politics -- the only structurally accountable system (where the corrective mechanism -- read election in every five years -- lies within the womb of the system) known to human civilisation from the days of Mesopotamia.
So why are all the beautiful protestors of South Mumbai dead against people elected by a popular vote? The reason is far more shameful than the present debate shows. It is that the English educated, upper class elite hates democracy for the simple reason that on that one day of polling their vote has the same weightage as a rickshaw puller's vote. Imagine the pain of the anglicised Sahib/Memsahib -- who earned his/her snobbery as a by-product of the insults heaped on his/her ancestors by the British Raj -- when faced with this humiliation of equality. So the answer is: abuse democracy and itch for dictatorship. This class never voted before the blasts. The blasts have given them an opportunity to throw their anti-democratic impuses around in a brazen, holier-than-thou fashion.
Though elitism is problematic in any age, globalisation has led to the rise of a virtually illeterate elite in India. There is a small leisure class who think they have an opinion because they speak Lord Macaulay's language. Without their English, their level of knowledge would match that of a frog.
We had an anglicised elite in colonial times too, but they knew a good deal of politics and economics apart from the Queen's language. So the elite of the time -- from Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale in the 1890s to Jawaharlal Nehru -- kept struggling for democarcy. Now we have fools like Shobha De and Suhel Seth donning the 'class' mantle, and they are struggling against democracy.
Surprisingly, while the landed elite in colonial India was the Dalaal class then -- like the anglicised upper middle and upper class now -- we recently saw a most democratic aristocratic politician -- V.P. Singh -- die unsung after a long career devoted to social justice (and some melodrama), the day the terrorists struck in Mumbai. It seems even former Zamindars are more democratic than the Taj-obsessed English-educated illeterates.
Some days back, the English media were sobbing that India does not have an Obama. For the first time they began to wonder why we never had a Dalit PM -- after spewing venom on reservation for years -- just because they felt that as true Chamchas of the US, they should cry for the transplantation of every thing and idea from the US to India. It is a different matter that it will take us some years to form an informed opinion on Obama as US president.
Well, after apeing the US, the English media have developed a new obsession after the Mumbai attack -- but without saying it in so many words. In their uncritical celebration of the army (though I myself respect the sacrifices of our Jawans as defenders of the country) and rejection of democratic politics, the TV journalists are now seeking India's Musharraf. They have learnt nothing from Pakistan's tryst with military dictatorship. They could have, if -- apart from English -- they knew some political science too.
The only people who have actually quit their chairs are politicians. Not a single napping Babu or cop (sufficiently discredited after the MASSIVE intelligence failure) or a single journalist (roundly condemned for sensational, insensitive coverage) has quit. The reason is not that saints take to politics and sinners to the media or babudom. The reason is that while Babus and journos are answerable to their seniors alone, the politician is answerable to every citizen -- be he a raja or bhikhari. This is the greatest strength of democratic politics -- the only structurally accountable system (where the corrective mechanism -- read election in every five years -- lies within the womb of the system) known to human civilisation from the days of Mesopotamia.
So why are all the beautiful protestors of South Mumbai dead against people elected by a popular vote? The reason is far more shameful than the present debate shows. It is that the English educated, upper class elite hates democracy for the simple reason that on that one day of polling their vote has the same weightage as a rickshaw puller's vote. Imagine the pain of the anglicised Sahib/Memsahib -- who earned his/her snobbery as a by-product of the insults heaped on his/her ancestors by the British Raj -- when faced with this humiliation of equality. So the answer is: abuse democracy and itch for dictatorship. This class never voted before the blasts. The blasts have given them an opportunity to throw their anti-democratic impuses around in a brazen, holier-than-thou fashion.
Though elitism is problematic in any age, globalisation has led to the rise of a virtually illeterate elite in India. There is a small leisure class who think they have an opinion because they speak Lord Macaulay's language. Without their English, their level of knowledge would match that of a frog.
We had an anglicised elite in colonial times too, but they knew a good deal of politics and economics apart from the Queen's language. So the elite of the time -- from Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale in the 1890s to Jawaharlal Nehru -- kept struggling for democarcy. Now we have fools like Shobha De and Suhel Seth donning the 'class' mantle, and they are struggling against democracy.
Surprisingly, while the landed elite in colonial India was the Dalaal class then -- like the anglicised upper middle and upper class now -- we recently saw a most democratic aristocratic politician -- V.P. Singh -- die unsung after a long career devoted to social justice (and some melodrama), the day the terrorists struck in Mumbai. It seems even former Zamindars are more democratic than the Taj-obsessed English-educated illeterates.
Some days back, the English media were sobbing that India does not have an Obama. For the first time they began to wonder why we never had a Dalit PM -- after spewing venom on reservation for years -- just because they felt that as true Chamchas of the US, they should cry for the transplantation of every thing and idea from the US to India. It is a different matter that it will take us some years to form an informed opinion on Obama as US president.
Well, after apeing the US, the English media have developed a new obsession after the Mumbai attack -- but without saying it in so many words. In their uncritical celebration of the army (though I myself respect the sacrifices of our Jawans as defenders of the country) and rejection of democratic politics, the TV journalists are now seeking India's Musharraf. They have learnt nothing from Pakistan's tryst with military dictatorship. They could have, if -- apart from English -- they knew some political science too.
posted by vikaspathak at 11:20 AM
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