Idiosyncrasies Afflicting The Indian Middle Class:
A Critical Commentary
By Subit Chakrabarti
23 April, 2011
Countercurrents.org
The whole hullabaloo surrounding the drafting of the Jan-Lokpal bill
betrays manifestations of a strange dichotomy in the actions and
thought processes of the Indian middle class, and by extension, the
mainstream media (which, by and large, caters to them). When
confronted with any attention-worthy incident, their general tendency
is to ephemerally, sensationalize and exaggerate everything about it –
make it much larger than life. They organize endless debates on it,
invite prominent people (from the flaky “upper classes”) to join their
milieu for protracted analyses and hold candlelight vigils. Then,
after a threshold period of time, it is relegated into oblivion – its
existence reduced to footnotes on insipid editorials.
There are two facets to this all-pervading problem. The first is the
sacrifice of reason in the face of preliminary sensationalism, as
examined at length by Avinash Panday Samar in his article “A Messiah
And The Melodramatic Middle class: ‘Rethinking' The Anna Hazare
Movement Against Corruption”
(http://countercurrents.org/samar220411.htm). In the wake of the
success of Anna Hazare’s fast unto death and the inclusion of civil
society members in the drafting committee, there is a general albeit
vague feeling of jubilation amongst the public who, rightly, consider
themselves the main stakeholders of this entire arrangement. But
wherein, exactly, lays the ‘victory’? The Lokpal (central ombudsman),
if and when established, will just be another organization amongst the
plethora of bureaucratic institutions we already have for different
societal malaises. Luminaries like Swami Agnivesh and Anna Hazare will
not be able to chaperone every single Lokayukta (regional ombudsman),
and judging by the rate at which the cancer of corruption spreads
through public bodies, it will in all probability be reduced to just
another kickback and bribe consuming entity. What is the point of
drafting new laws when we do not have the infrastructure or integrity
to successfully enforce current ones?
There is, of course, no panacea for corruption, no single person who
can subdue this monster that we have reared in our backyard for the
past sixty odd years, Bollywoodesque expectations of the general
public notwithstanding. It will take a systemic overhaul and a
gargantuan collective effort by every Indian over a considerable
period of time to make any sustainable progress at all, which brings
us to the second part of the problem - evanescent public memory.
A direct beneficiary of the short attention span that we are afflicted
with is the Government, along with all other institutions accountable
to the civil society in some way or the other. It is almost a part and
parcel of accepted realpolitik nowadays to engage in tokenism, as a
default solution to everything – as follow up action rarely comes
under any scrutiny whatsoever. Consider the horrific 26/11 blasts as
an example. What did the weeks of civilian protests and displays of
solidarity with the victims achieve – merely, a token show of sympathy
and cessation of cricketing ties with Pakistan for the last three
years (which are due to resume soon, if BCCI reports are to be
believed). And the worst part is that no one seems to care. Even the
patrol boats, to be deployed around the Mumbai harbor area to prevent
similar future attacks, have not been acquired yet, though the money
was drawn from the National Exchequer around a year ago.
(http://www.indianexpress.com/news/CAG-slams-
state-govt-on-delay-in-procuring-patrol-boats-for-police/780250/)
But the people who seemed to be divinely appointed to make a hue and
cry, vilifying all and sundry at that point of time over the whole
issue, have moved on now, to Jan Lokpal, Binayak Sen or other matters
more “in fashion” today.
The central authorities are well aware of these proclivities of the
middle class. Over the last sixty years they have perfected the art of
biding their time with a few perfunctory gestures thrown now and then,
to keep situations and tempers under control. And we accept these
gestures and move on – for tokenism is not merely a part of politics
but deeply ingrained into our societal fabric. Superficial meaningless
gestures bordering on hypocrisy are as Indian as cheering for the
cricket team or racial stereotyping. If the dissenters do keep on
persevering, stoked by the dimunitive Gandhian, at the end of the
financial year, there will probably be a central Ombudsman, elected by
the judges and Indian Administrative Services officers and overseen by
the Election Commission.
But will it be exempt from the collective amnesia, which is proven to
kick in without fail, at some juncture? Will there be any hullabaloo
on how it actually performs the quixotic tasks it is being called upon
to perform? Or will it be just another chapter in the social science
books of the upcoming generation?
Will we be actually able to rise above our tried and tested
idiosyncrasies and actually fight a social evil, till the gory end ?
As Bob Dylan would have said, “The answer my friend, is blowing in the
wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.”
Subit Chakrabarti, is a third year student of Electronics
Engineering at an Indian Universtity. In addition to writing technical
papers for scientific conferences and journals, he writes political commentaries too.
He can be reached on thisemail ID ([email protected])
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