Pavan K. Varma | Whom to elect? Let the civil discourse decide it

I am a firm believer in the great Indian tradition of shastrartha or sabhya samvad, the art of civilised discourse.  Of the three foundational texts of Hinduism — the Upanishads and the Bhagwad Gita are dialogues, and the commentaries on the Brahmsutras, always include the opposing point of view. The most famous shastrartha took place between Adi Shankaracharya and Mandana Mishra in the 8th century CE.  In the 12th century CE, the Anubhava Mantapa set up by the Lingayat founders, Basavanna and Allama Prabhu, in the Karnataka kingdom of King Bijalla II, was a forum where men and women from all social and economic backgrounds could come and freely discuss spiritual questions, or any matter of public importance.  Mughal emperor Akbar in the 16th century too set up the platform, Din-i-Ilahi, for an open discussion on theological matters.

It is in this spirit of shastrartha that I participate in public debates, and two opportunities recently presented themselves at the India Today and CNN News 18 Conclaves.  At the India Today event, a speaker expressed the fear that India is fast becoming a “democratic autocracy”, where an overweening state was misusing its powers and endangering freedom, liberty and democracy itself. 

In response I said that citizens must always be vigilant about the threat to democracy, but democracy will never be extinguished in our country, however dictatorial the state may be, because support of citizens can never be taken for granted, nor can their power be underestimated. They have been participants in a parliamentary democracy for 75 years, and will not cede their constitutionally given democratic rights so easily.  Moreover, in a country as large and diverse as ours, imposing an authoritarian monolith is playing with fire. 

Politics is a dynamic process. Those who seem invincible at one time, can crumble against the wrath of the people. Who could have thought that in 1971, after winning the war with Pakistan, and helping to create Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi, with an absolute majority in Parliament, and hailed as the incarnation of Durga, would by 1975 need to declare an Emergency to remain in power?  When she lifted it in 1977, her party, the Congress, was thrown out by the people, and she lost her own election. 

There is also the example of Rajiv Gandhi.  In 1984, he won a historic mandate, with an absolute majority of over 400 seats, which neither his mother Indira, nor grandfather Nehru, had achieved. He was young, handsome, with a modern vision, and seemingly undefeatable. The BJP was then reduced to two seats in Parliament. Yet, the same Rajiv by 1989 was struggling to survive, and lost the subsequent national election.  In politics, new faces and narratives emerge which resonate with the people, and all aspiring autocrats should remember Ghalib’s dire warning: “Har bulandi ke naseebon mein hai pasti ek din: Every pinnacle has within it the seeds of its own decline.”

All-powerful leaders make mistakes when they begin to feel they are infallible. They also falter when they stop taking advice and counsel from others. It is not an uncommon syndrome. When leaders are convinced that whatever they do, their popularity will not be affected, nor will their winnability be in question, their politics acquires a dangerous impunity. The conviction of being unchallenged, leads to excesses, which may not be effectively challenged in the immediate future, but become the very reason for the explosion of slow-burn anger gradually building among citizens. The interesting thing is that the supremacist leader is the last to read the changing mood of the public.

Misuse of power has the greatest ‘legitimacy’ in democracies. Those committing it do not need to abolish the democratic system but can claim validation for its misuse by the fact that they have been popularly elected in a largely free and fair election. This added sense of entitlement becomes a spur to convert aberration into excess, and excess into the very subversion of democratic institutions. The process is imperceptible, and often the subversion has a conjured legal backing, where some provision in the law books or even the Constitution can be manipulatively cited as an excuse.

This is precisely what happened with Indira Gandhi. Her unquestioned popularity, and cult status, led her to believe that she could get away with anything. This attitude ultimately led to the declaration of the Emergency in 1975, where misuse of power — acquired through the provisions of the Constitution — took the form of institutional oppression, and the emasculation and arrest of the entire Opposition. What she did not realise — and all autocrats make the same mistake — that people are not inert puppets. They watch and internalise every development, and suddenly the same adulating crowds turn hostile. A focal point to challenge their grievance then miraculously appears. Who could have thought that in Indira’s case it would be an ageing and mostly forgotten man living in seclusion in retirement in an ashram in Kadam Kuan in Patna — Jayaprakash Narayan?       

At the News 18 conclave I was in a conversation with senior leader Ram Madhav of the BJP, on the nature of Hindutva. I admire Madhav’s intellectual credentials. I had no disagreement with him when he said that Hindutva is the same as the Hindu faith, so long as he meant it as the essence of its fundamental strengths: A conquering eclecticism of vision, profound philosophy, and innate tolerance to dissent. But when Hindutva is used as a political tool to create hatred, bigotry and religious divisions in society, it cannot be conflated with Sanatan Dharma. If Hindutva reduces the grandeur of Hindu thought to its lowest common denominator, and brazenly weaponises it for political dividends, it cannot be considered a synonym for Hindu Dharma. If self-appointed ‘thekedars’ of Hindutva think it is their ordained right to tell Hindus how to behave, how to worship, what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, and — driven by their patriarchal orthodoxies — expect women to conform to the notion of a ‘chaste Hindu nari’, it cannot be the Hinduism the vast majority of Hindus practise.

Hindu civilisation has survived for millennia on the basis of shastrartha. This is because Sanatan Dharma is a way of life, that allows for dissent and debate. Let this sabhya samvad continue.