The Habits of this Democracy

They are fighting for the sake of our society, and it is high time the “executioners” of our democracy listen and understand what they have to say, writes Atharva Pandit.

“It is not however the habit of democracies to use my sort of intelligence.”

-Ezra Pound, in a letter to his father.

Ezra Pound, who has generally been known, in his legacy, to be humble, often projecting younger poets to be better than him, in his personal moment of pride and boasting (though that’s too powerful a word) went on to write what would not be too untrue for the modern Indian democracy. Or is it? The debate regarding India’s reign as a democracy has never been as ragingly powerful as it seems today. The apologists of the state would of course argue that the debate on democracy has always been a subject of sociologists and political scientists and philosophers, but the fact that these very distinguished individuals are, today, coming out in the open to talk and write about how this age-long debate now applies to India, is in itself proof of how degrading the Indian democratic arrangement might turn out in the near future, if the process hasn’t started already.

This has been glaringly visible all throughout the last couple of days, what with writers- the ultimate gatekeepers of democracy- expressing their dissent over Indian democracy’s growing and increasingly disturbing “intolerance.” Shashi Deshpande resigned from the Sahitya Akademi’s General Council citing the council’s silence on the scholar M.M. Kalburgi’s cold-blooded murder. Others have referred to the lynching of Akhlaq in Dadri, which they felt was communally incited (which it of course was) and one of the many instances of the intolerance of India’s one particular community towards the other, India’s one particular class towards another. Adding fuel to fire was Prime Minister Modi, who chose to keep his silence over the issue, instead taking up to Twitter to shower his wishes on an ailing cricketer.

As unfortunate as this may sound, other ministers of the BJP went a step ahead and accused the writers- the intellectual- of being “opportunists” and “stooges” of one party or the other. Instead of looking into the matter for what it is, our ministers, like always, chose to downplay the protest as something undertaken by “Pakistani agents” and “Congress Party maniacs.” It all reminded me of the days of Soviet Communism, when the dissidents from the “land of eternal socialist sunshine” flew into the US to denounce the Stalinist Socialism still being followed by the Communists in Soviet Union- in spite of the Khrushchev Thaw- and were subsequently tagged as “revolutionary traitors” and “imperialist stooges.” The Communists of Soviet Union never knew the better of it, and their own doctrine fell to the onslaught of global capitalism with the breakup of the Soviet myth. I see the right-wing fundamentalists of our country gradually skipping their way to the same fate. Only, the fundamentalism of their ideals would eventually fall to the liberal and leftist intellectuals of this nation.

Come to think of it, though. Pound uses the words “democracy” and “intelligence” in the same breath, which, for me, implies something. The killings and the silencing of intellectuals in a democracy is not unheard of- Russia and Turkey are stark examples- but it certainly remained unheard in India, until 2014, before Modi and BJP came marching in. The recent killings and silencing of several intellectuals, all together, and all leaning either left or, if not that, then radically opposing the ideology of the right, have attested to the fact that intellectuals are not really safe in the times we live in. Adding to that is the fact that the investigations launched into their killings haven’t progressed much, even years after they were gunned down, in cold blood, and in the light of the day. If this is not dangerous- to be daring enough to shoot down a prominent personality in broad daylight, without any kind of evident fear- then I don’t know what is.

And it is this fear that the 50 odd writers are fighting against, albeit silently. It has often been proclaimed, and not without examples, that the writer is a person who battles with words as his sword. The weapon then, for our writers, is their awards and the praise showered upon them by the State- and the writers are boldly rejecting this praise in the hope that it would serve to be a catapult. They do not want these awards and these trophies and medals, all they ask for is the cultivation of a democracy, all they ask for is condemnation of what they rightly believe is disharmony fueled, in part, by the State. They want a society which is not fabricated; which is not inspired by a particular ideology or agenda- they have been called anti-nationals, Naxals and yes-men for their powerful protests, but they are the actual patriots, for they believe that today’s patriotism is cloaked by disgusting nationalism, a nationalism so dangerous, they know, as to corrupt the democracy that is India.

They are fighting for the sake of our society, and it is high time the “executioners” of our democracy listen and understand what they have to say. It could, indeed, do with their sort of intelligence.

–  Mr Atharva Pandit is a Mumbai-based columnist. Views expressed by Mr Pandit in the above column are personal.