Essay on Tackling the Threats from Communalism for UPSC : The homeostatic societal checks and balance mechanism has been slowly evolving and has prevented any particular interest or force to rule the roost in a manner as to threaten the flourishing of other interests or forces. And in a highly inegalitarian and hierachised society like ours, when the state fails to meet popular expectations, the people led by politicians, would naturally be left to their own resources and in a competitive democratic political systems, identity politics come very handy as that is they only resource people have in a system where heads count.
Essay on Tackling the Threats from Communalism for UPSC
The homeostatic societal checks and
balance mechanism has been slowly evolving and has prevented any particular
interest or force to rule the roost in a manner as to threaten the flourishing
of other interests or forces. And in a highly inegalitarian and hierachised
society like ours, when the state fails to meet popular expectations, the
people led by politicians, would naturally be left to their own resources and
in a competitive democratic political systems, identity politics come very
handy as that is they only resource people have in a system where heads count.
By pooling their numerical strength, they try to compete with each other in the
political marketplace for value allocation in their favour. Scapegoating other
communities or groups is only one of the many strategies employed by them to
advance their interests and communalism is the natural outcome of such politics
as the celebrated historian Bipan Chandra opines.
One strongly feels that the panchayati
raj institutions aimed at the decentralisation of power would eventually
see the percolation of power to the grass roots and would lead to people
developing a stake in the system and once this happens, Indian political system
would no longer be a hostage to the whims and fancies of the crooked
politicians. After all, someone has rightly said that ‘you can fool some people
all the time, all the people for some time but you cannot fool all the people
all the time.’ The point is that there are so many interests operating in the
society, that none would like to be left behind and in that scramble for power
and increased share of the national pie all operate in a way to check and
balance each other.
But as discussed above, there is
nothing to be very despondent about. A country as huge and as diverse as ours
is bound to have many teething troubles before it completes its journey from
being a state-nation to a nation-state. India was fortunate enough, at least
vis-a-vis her many time-twins, to have a leadership to start with which was
relatively upright, scrupulous, visionary and committed enough to provide a
solid foundation to the infant state and its prolonged presence only helped the
matters. So, despite the growing instance of communalism, the national
integration seems to be only consolidating. And there are many signs to that
effect. The very fact that today Indians all over the country enjoy the game of
cricket and root for Team India proves the fact that the ‘imagined community’
that Benedict Anderson talked of has slowly been evolving. Pokhran-2 led to the
same pan-India rejoicing. Kargil further corroborated this. And if there was
any scruple, the overwhelming positive response to the Gujarat earthquake and
communal holocaust removed that. Often the silver lining in the political cloud
has also come to be seen.
A section of our political class may
be somewhat irresponsible, reckless and unscrupulous, but when it comes to the
larger national interest, national integration and betterment, it has not
compromised. Competitive party politics, sans real issues, falls back on easy
resources for electoral mobilisation how soever unethical and unscrupulous that
might be. And people answer to such calls because that appears to them to be
the only salvation amid the overall scenario of gloom and doom and also as the
only way to ameliorate their condition. Once a basic equity is achieved in
resource allocation and once our human resources get educationally and
cognitively enriched, there would be little scope for such parochial politics.
Caste, religion, language would, at best, be only one of the various factors in
politics and would not dominate the political skulduggery the way it does now.
The growing stature of some right-wing
organisation has also been the cause of concern for many. But the point is what
could one do about it? Can one think of banning such organisations or their
style of politics? Certainly not, more so in a democracy like ours. Banning or
stigmatising them would only aggravate the problems further. As someone rightly
said about someone that ‘it is better to have him in and spit out rather than
have him out and spit in’. So, our attempt should be at finding ways to restore
them to the system. The massive membership of such organisation, if positively
channelled, could prove to be a great national asset. Also, if their membership
structure could be changed to reflect the sundry constituent units of Indian
population, then it would be all the better.
Notwithstanding all those
apprehensions about such organisation, some of them have greatly modified the
content and style of their politics or activities, as they know only too well
that with a confrontationist politics, which excludes a major section of the
Indian society, they cannot hope to go very far. The way Indian society has
become polarised lately, no political party can hope to form a government of
its own accord. And for a right-wing Party, none would touch it even with a
barge pole until it diluted its ideology and extremist political style. Some
such parties have been slowly inching
towards the centre of the ideological spectrum and have emerged as on of the
principal political actors on the national scene. It also shows as to how the
party system has been evolving in this country. Having only one dominant
political party could create its own problems as happened in the heydays of the
one-party-dominant system in the immediate aftermath of our Independence. It
could not only get complacent about the overall developmental project, but
could also start developing a sense of invincibility which could make it
irresponsible and autocratic enough as to endanger the very survival of the
system. Here, one would quickly like to add that they bloated fear about the
loss of the era of stable government owing to polarised vote bank politics is
also unwarranted. Stability is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for
socio-politico-economic development of the country. And asked to choose between
stability and responsibility, one would readily plump for the latter.
A government with an absolute majority
could become autocratic and conduct itself in an irresponsible way but the
constraints of a coalition government force it to behave responsibly. And that
is what should matter more. The multifarious societal forces would always be
there to make it behave itself. Also, as long as there is a consensus on basic
policies and values, instability should not be a cause for concern. Since 1989,
several governments have taken their turns at the Centre, but the basic policy
has remained the same. Despite all the rhetoric against the liberalisation and
privatisation of the Indian economy, none has been able to reverse it.
So, even thought the Indian nation
state has been slowly emerging, consolidating and strengthening itself through
the bumpy electoral politics in world’s largest democracy, one would like to
enter several caveats here. We not only need our leadership at every level,
including political and administrative, to behave more responsibly than they
have so far playing ducks and drakes with the many opportunities provided. A
dedicated, committed and responsible leadership with a vision is what this
country sorely needs rather than merely the military muscle. A leadership that
fattens and grows at the expense of its people, which dwarfs its own people and
erodes their capacities, would eventually discover that with pygmies [in terms
of capacities] dotting th length and breadth of the country, it can’t make the
country great.
A democratic system runs on the
principle of majority but the constraints of competitive party politics should
not blind our political class so much as to lose sight of the larger interests
of the country. Politics of vote bank should be positively and productively
channelled towards the building of a cohesive and stronger nation-state, which
can hold its head high in the Comity of Nations. And it would be in the
interest of our political class to engage in responsible politics, as sooner
rather than later the people are likely to see through their game plan and
reject such politics out of hand. After all, wisdom of a minuscule political
class cannot be more than the cumulative wisdom of the people of an entire
country.
Also, our leadership has to do
something about the institutional revival in the country and this has to be
done in co-operative with the intelligentsia, media, industrial class and the
civil society. If all of them act in tandem, we would soon be living in a
developed India, an India in keeping with the ideals, values and principles
enshrined in our Constitution, an India all of us have cherished and yearned to
live in. And, of course, an India far untouched from the demon of communalism,
which has so far been on the rise owing to the present day politics propelled
by crass opportunism.
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