Mathew John 
Here are some snippets that I gleaned from the Godi news media today, i.e. September 4: a. ‘500 SEBI employees write to [the] finance ministry on toxic work culture under Madhabi Buch’; b. ‘Thane magistrate’s court cancels bail to cow vigilantes who brutalised a 72-year-old Muslim’; c. ‘Subhash Chandra of Zee Entertainment issues a press release alleging corruption against the chairperson of SEBI’.
For a long ten years when our democracy was under assault, happenings like the kind mentioned above, that could cause embarrassment to the regime, were either nipped in the bud or news about them squelched before they hit the newsstands. Everything changed on June 4 – that red letter day when emperor Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall, and we recovered our freedom.
Today, the power dynamics have shifted decisively in favour of transparency, perhaps a fitting time to play back to Modi the borrowed Bob Dylan quote that he tauntingly spouted at the Global Citizen Festival in 2016 soon after the demonetisation debacle: “Don’t criticise what you can’t understand … the times, they are a changin!” Life has come full circle!
Kahlil Gibran was spot on about the indispensability of human freedom: “Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.” The Lok Sabha election and the fractured mandate of June 4 marked the day of deliverance for all Indians who believe in the idea of India that our founding fathers envisaged.
I also realised that freedom is not just good for the soul but for one’s physical well-being. Of a sudden, the heebie-jeebies in the pit of the stomach have gone and so have the acid-reflux, the sleeplessness and other psychogenic problems; and there’s almost a spring in the step of the old dog. Let me tell you – freedom is an unmitigated good!
For ten interminable years, India’s story was about inhumanity, bigotry and unspeakable cruelty; it was about the deliberate, organised and hate-filled othering of the Muslim; it was about complicit institutions, a partisan judiciary and law enforcement machinery.
Undergirding such overt forms of oppression was what that most remarkable playwright-philosopher-politician of the twentieth century, Vaclav Havel, called the “technique of existential pressure” that embraced the whole of society and every individual.
It was a nameless terror – “a hideous spider whose invisible web runs right through the whole of society” – that demanded unquestioning obedience and went to the absurd extent of citizens banging thalis and lighting diyas on command from on high. Everyone was positioned as either a victim or a supporter of the regime.
This grim period showed up people for what they are – ugly, bad or good. At the top of the list of despicable collaborators were the potentially most powerful segment of what constitutes civil society – the self-serving, cowardly middle class, ever ready to kowtow to the regime for personal gain, informing on their fellow citizens, revelling in the hedonistic consumer culture and heedless of the injustice and misery all around.
Equally, if not more, reprehensible was the conduct of the corporate honchos and the business community in general who sold their souls to the regime and, in tandem with their political benefactors, fattened off the land.
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It was left to the powerless, i.e. the poor and the dispossessed, to rescue our democracy. And they did! Like in 1977, when they booted out the despotic Indira Gandhi, once again, against all odds, the poor of this country delivered a verdict against tanashahi, denying the BJP a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha election.
Of a sudden, the blinding light of freedom has dispelled the darkness that had enveloped us for ten years.
Our chaotic, vibrant democracy has come roaring back! After being on the ropes for years on end, a rejuvenated opposition, fortified by their impressive numbers, took parliament by storm in the recent monsoon session and, to extend the boxing analogy, pummelled the ruling party with a barrage of thunderous jabs.
The look of hangdog sheepishness punctuated by impotent outrage on the faces of the two bullies was a sight to behold. On all counts, it was a technical knockout!
It’s no longer a one-way street. Shackled by the constraints of a coalition, the compulsive authoritarian has been forced into submitting to the bumpy dynamics of democratic functioning with its checks and balances.
Legislation that hitherto was cleared by an imperious parliament without discussion has now hit hard rock. The Broadcast Bill and the Waqf (Amendment) Bill that are unmistakable confirmation that Modi’s mentality has not changed, have been withdrawn and sent to a joint parliamentary committee respectively. And the notification regarding lateral entry into the intermediate rungs of government was also withdrawn.
The judiciary which was, for the most part, a covert accomplice of the authoritarian regime seems to have responded haltingly to the gust of freedom that has blown our way. Its recent cheering judgements that ‘bail is the rule and jail the exception’ even in UAPA and PMLA cases were begging to be made for years.
As pointed out by Ravish Kumar in his recent forensic analysis of the subject, the half-hearted, ambivalent and even contrary judgements by the Supreme Court have not adequately served the cause of justice.
While Manish Sisodia, K. Kavitha and some others arrested in connection with the Delhi liquor policy case have finally been granted bail, Umar Khalid, the heroic student activist, remains in jail even after four years on the manifestly trumped-up charges of inciting the 2020 Delhi riots, whereas Kapil Mishra, whose hate-filled and incendiary speech triggered the riots according to most sources, has been untouched, which speaks volumes about our cock-eyed justice system.
It is curious that whereas the Supreme Court jumped into the fray in the R.G. Kar case by taking suo motu cognisance, it has maintained an apathetic silence in the face of the SEBI-Adani scandal revelations, which is worrying.
Despite irrefutable evidence that both the expert committee that it had appointed to examine the Hindenburg allegations as well as SEBI were guilty of dereliction in the remit entrusted to them, the Supreme Court has so far maintained a puzzling aloofness.
Hopefully, with democracy back on track, the Supreme Court will be under increasing public pressure to do the right thing by the law.
The tepid electoral outcome for the BJP has restored some sanity in India’s external affairs ministry, which for ten years functioned as the prime minister’s publicity bureau, single-mindedly focussed on promoting the Vishwaguru and his business cronies.
Despite the electoral setback, initially Modi acted like it was business and junket time as usual. But the lukewarm reception at the G-7 summit in Italy, and then the universal criticism of his defiant and supportive bear-hug of Putin in Moscow hours after a Russian strike on a Kyiv children’s hospital, made him change tactics.
There followed what should be called a balancing penitential visit to Ukraine, but his melodramatic expression of solicitude for the deaths and suffering caused by the war cut no ice with President Zelenskyy, who was not fooled and rebuffed the prime minister in no uncertain terms.
The image of the self-proclaimed peace-mediator lies in tatters! Who was it who said that democracy is an unending exercise in humbling the arrogant?
The positive signs are India’s new much-needed efforts to enhance cooperation and understanding with our neighbours, including Pakistan. There is now open acknowledgement that the border “dispute” and uneasy relations with China are indicative that we have a “special China problem” over and above the world’s “general China problem”. Will the government finally admit Chinese incursions into our territory?
It was supremely ironic but most heartening to hear Modi’s appeal to Bangladesh to protect and look after the interests of its minorities, including Hindus. He should heed Muhammad Yunus’s cautionary advice and make sure that his buddy – the smiling terminator – keeps her own counsel while under protective cover in India.
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There is no doubt that the trappings of democracy are back, but it would be a mistake to conclude that these basic practices engendered by our new-found freedom are what democracy is all about. In truth, they only provide the preliminary groundwork for the more difficult tasks ahead.
To quote Babasaheb Ambedkar: “Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life.”
We are nowhere near the kind of democracy we want to be! Only a society that has overcome prejudice and hatred and ensures equal treatment to all its citizens can claim to be a truly just society. Regrettably, the noble ideals set forth in the preamble, which spells out the resolve “to secure justice, liberty and equality for all its citizens and promote fraternity among all”, remain more elusive than ever.
Of the cherished values that attest to our commitment to secular humanism, the greatest and most neglected is fraternity, perhaps because it is least amenable to political action.
As a wise woman once observed, the state can prevent me from coveting my neighbour’s property, but it cannot oblige me, by law, to love my neighbour. Yet, the success of our pursuit to be a strong, united and happy country ultimately depends on whether we love one another – regardless of how we look, how we worship, what we eat, how we love.
Sadly, in the last ten years under Modi, our worst impulses have been unleashed. Fear and hate have consumed us and we are more divided than ever. There is little empathy and decency in our public discourse. The persecution and lynching of Muslims is a daily occurrence even today and it no longer excites interest, let alone outrage.
What’s at stake is not just our democracy, but our survival as a united republic. At this dangerous time, we need a leader who can think beyond himself and bring people together instead of dividing them to retain power. This country certainly does not need any more of the Modi leadership style.
It was hoped that the BJP itself with critical support from the RSS would bring about a change in party and government leadership, but the BJP parliamentary party meeting hasn’t happened after the Lok Sabha polls for the first time in decades. One cannot but continue to hope for a change from within, for the good of the country.
The writer is a former civil servant. The views are personal.