Nandigram: The Cowardice Of
MediocrityBy Aseem Shrivastava
26 November, 2007
Tehelka“Not being able to fortify justice, they justified force.”
Blaise PascalDelhi 1984. Mumbai 1993. Gujarat 2002. Nandigram 2007. Signposts of pathology on the putrefying landscape of Indian politics. What sort of a future does this sequence of events portend for this beleaguered country? A red thread of publicly endorsed savagery runs through the heart of these chilling episodes of recent Indian history.
The matter is so central to our shared destiny that if we lose ourselves in the deception of numbers – of merely comparing the number of rapes, murders and so on – we will tragically miss the key point and bind ourselves to a frightful fate we might otherwise still be able to forestall. Outright barbarism knocks on our doors and we do not hear it. The public relations experts, image consultants and media managers (not to forget intellectual apologists) are hard at work making us deaf and blind towards obvious injustices.
Evil comes in many shades. It is saffron here, red there, and saffron, white and green elsewhere. In each case of state terror listed above a different party was in office. In one and every case, elected leaders forgot their public duty, donned their party attire and defended the crimes committed by their cadres. In Delhi in 1984, the Prime Minister of the day had declared that the earth had shaken after a great tree had fallen. In Mumbai in 1993, the Chief Minister was of the view that the city would have burned had the leaders responsible for unleashing the mobs been arrested. In Gujarat in 2002, “every action had an equal and opposite reaction”, in the words of the Chief Minister. And now, we have the Stalinist Chief Minister of West Bengal boasting that “they have been paid back in their own coin” (the invisible Maoists that is).
In every case innocents were maimed, murdered, raped and rendered homeless. The state failed in its primary function – of ensuring the physical security of its citizens. In no case did the honorable men in office take any responsibility and think it fit to resign their posts – the only act which could ever entitle them to name the crimes of their political rivals in similar circumstances. Quite evidently, our leaders have no faith that they will be returned to office, were they to signal their dissent and protest by resigning. Even more to the point, they believe that even barbarism is fine if it adds to the power of their party, “religion” or nation. And even more cynically, they calculate that the public, after making a few angry sounds, will lapse into forgetfulness.
We are still childish when it comes to learning certain things. We take our moral cues from others and, for all our education, follow the leader blindly. As usual, the trouble in human societies starts from the top. For some decades now, Indian ruling elites have looked towards Washington to show the light. President Bush Jr. set a shining example before the whole world when he announced the doctrine of preventive war in 2002, empowering himself with the right to attack any country in the event of even a suspicion of their plans to harm the national security of the US. He did just that to Afghanistan and Iraq (with consequences all too obvious to belabor).
Here in India we are very skilful at emulating the white man’s vices (never his virtues). Little wonder then that our leaders feel entitled to exempt themselves from elementary moral sense. And evidently credit the public with even less of it.
In a mediocre age, men and women in public life find themselves capable of justice only if it is in fashion. Their primary loyalty is to moral fashion after all, not to justice. As in every other age they look after their moral appearances – but only to the extent that they don’t appear too tardy in a mirror already darkened by the misdeeds of their rivals.
In the Spring of 2002, the same Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was “ashamed of the role played by the Prime Minister in tackling the Gujarat killings”, just like to L.K.Advani’s affronted sensibilities, the CPM has “nuked the farmers in Nandigram” today. If only Advani had visited the Muslims of Behrampura and Naroda Patiya with the same compassion he is showing to the peasants of Sonachura and Gokulnagar today! He would have seen just how well the Muslims had been nuked by his Bajrangi chums.
Buddhadeb’s sense of shame has dutifully taken leave of him in a timely way today. “It wasn’t possible for police to go” to Nandigram, he explains. Did the invisible Maoists prevent them? How did the cadres (mobilized apparently from as far afield as Purulia and Burdwan) do it? With what right can the government go on if it has such a seemingly incompetent police force to maintain law and order in the times that matter? How does it transpire that it trusts the militarism of its cadres more than the capacities of the police force? Who supplied the cadres with automatic machine guns? How come the same police is so efficient at raining repression on artists and intellectuals in the streets of Kolkata?
The state Home Secretary (who should know) has “not heard of any Maoist arrest.” Either he is plain wrong or the CPM leaders are lying and indulging in public fantasies about Maoists. All the partners of the CPM in the ruling alliance are pointing fingers at it not merely for not controlling the bloodletting but for in fact instigating it. Witnesses – those of them who have been allowed into Nandigram by the cadres – are reporting tales of plain horror. There is evidently plenty for the CPM to hide. Human rights teams have their task cut out.
If genocide visited the land of Gandhi five years ago, tyranny today stalks the earth where Tagore once sang.
There is no greater tragedy for the famed democracy than when the state goes into hiding from time to time to enable narrow political victories for its supine functionaries. It is a typically Indian pattern of state terror and violence which repeats itself with almost predictable frequency. To enable quick, opportunistic political gain, a party in office uses its lumpen cadres to unleash violence on defenceless innocents, with the active or passive cooperation of the police or paramilitary forces. The crimes are not even acknowledged to be so, suitable justification supplied to defend the misdeeds. All parties need male, unemployed youth to keep the blood-stained pillars of power in place (one reason why unemployment suits the political parties and is thus not going to go away).
It also makes public hypocrisies perfectly transparent and leadership ever so unworthy of credible respect by the public. How can the Prime Minister be holding out the threat to internal security posed by extremists in the politically forlorn states of Chhatisgarh or Jharkhand if he indulges the state terror of his political partners in Bengal or if he ignores the evidence of state terror in another state, recently made public by brave endeavors of investigative journalism? And how does the CPM expect any credibility in the eyes of the public if it offers the nuclear deal to its UPA allies in exchange for being granted the privilege of not having its ugly sins in Nandigram investigated and exposed? Has Washington become less of an imperial monster in the past few weeks? Is this the way a responsible political party would participate in policy-making of the greatest importance to the future of the nation?
What is pathetic to behold is the abject opportunism with which each of the major political parties make appropriate indignant noises about the crimes of their rivals for a while, only to recede into eventual inaudibility. And of course a studied, calculated silence about their own crimes.
When force is in fashion, values in public life recede quietly into oblivion and the polity faces a historic crisis of moral imagination. The most prominent political actors are only left with the freedom to act in ways which make their otherwise apprehensive rivals breathe a sigh of relief – since they are not the only ones with skeletons colliding noisily in their closets. Not one has the courage to stare into the mirror of terror. And not one has the faith that were s/he to resign s/he would live to fight another day.
In the world, cowardice arms itself. And having done so, it is too busy defending its own aggression to exercise the liberty of feeling, thought and reason which alone can enable human beings to become fully human – by recognizing, honoring and celebrating the existence of others.
Nandigram is yet another signpost on the rapid descent into growing barbarism in India. It betokens an across-the-board bankruptcy of imagination which makes the use of illegitimate force to tackle conflicts the default measure. The leaders have made themselves helpless because of their customary cowardice. It is time for the public to wake up to the urgent responsibilities of civilized citizenship.
Aseem Shrivastava is an independent writer. He can be reached at [email protected]..
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