Leadership Crisis in India - Continues Again

In my last post I had said that we shall look into why the leadership in the country has become what it is and how that impacts on democracy here. The last few days have provided enough instances to make my case. Due to the ongoing situation, my argument for the nth time emanates out of the Telangana tangle that goes unresolved and threatens to destroy the Osmania University once and for all. It is well known that the campus has become some sort of a hostile zone with pitched battles breaking out every once in a while. There are almost as many policemen on campus as there are students. A concerned citizen went to the High Court of Andhra Pradesh asking for the police to be removed. A Single Judge bench obliged. The Judge talked about how Telangana is not Pakistan and how the Osmania University entrances should not be barricaded like the Wagah border. I am a little amused by the choice of words of the esteemed Judge. Osmania University is not Telangana so the parallel is quite ludicrous. To liken the entrance to the Wagah border is confounding of an already confused situation. I am not questioning the learned Judge's judgement but simply drawing attention to a possible state of mind of all concerned about the Telangana issue and the State of Andhra Pradesh. But this is only an aside. What I thought was slightly amusing. The real issue is not the good Judge's vocabulary but the part that the judiciary plays in the politics and administration of the country.

This is the time that I shall have to bother you with some boring details about the constitution of India and the position of the judiciary accorded by it. There are three organs of government. The legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Baron de Montesquieu, a French man of great repute, propounded a theory of what he called Separation of Powers and what others call a system of checks and balances, where in order to protect the rights of common citizens, the powers of one organ of government are checked by the powers of the other two. The legislature is the law making body, the executive is the law implementing body and the judiciary is the law adjudicating body. This is a simplification of things but I do not intend to convert this post into a lecture on government. The interesting thing is that in countries like the United States of America all personnel into all three organs of government are elected (though some offices in the judiciary are not). Basically all three organs were supposed to create and protect the rule of law, where neither individual or office is more powerful than the law of the land. Rule of Law very clearly stipulates that no citizen of a country is above the law and therefore the expression the Rule of Law. In India too we have a rule of the law system but there are significant differences to be noted. First is that at no level are members of the judiciary elected. Second and equally important is that for the defining of guilt there are no juries. This aspect raises some questions about the nature of rule of law. I have repeatedly talked about rule of law without talking of what constitutes law itself. I shall immediately remedy that situation.

When human social groupings were still in tune with nature, laws of social conduct were derived from the laws of nature and therefore the basis of law in human society was cosmological, where the human being is just one part of a cosmos with no special status. With the passage of time and with the emergence of 'civilization' human beings slowly moved away from cosmology to religion where a God comes into being and the universe is treated as His Creation. In this religious system, the human being enjoyed a status that was higher than that of any other animal and the difference could be seen in the human being's ability to cogitate rationally to understand the rules of conduct laid down by God. Laws were dictates of God that had to be legitimated by holy books. These laws therefore could never be broken. With further 'progress' human beings appropriated unto themselves a status wherein it was believed that the universe was there for the pleasuring of the human species. Therefore all other forms of life were treated as necessarily inferior. This also meant that the human being without any compunction eliminates all forms of life at his/her convenience. Logging of trees, taming of animals, eliminating some animals calling them pests are representations of this line of thinking. I would like to say here that in order to cut a long story short I have eliminated a lot of subtleties but on the whole my rendition of the story is accurate.

To proceed with the story then, when the human being becomes the Master of the Universe, the perception about the origin of laws changes yet again. Law is now taken to be the outcome of rational deliberation on the part of citizens in society and it is therefore the rational and logical desire of people to live life in a certain way. The story is so far so good. But a problem comes into being at this juncture. If all laws are rational and deliberate expression of human will and if the legislature is the law making body, then true power or Sovereignty must lie with the legislature. The theory of checks and balances says that even the legislature cannot exceed limits and that will be determined by the judiciary. It is this problem that generates others. The judiciary has the power to brand acts of the legislature and the executive as being illegal. In India the judiciary is not elected by the people. The legislature and executive are. The elected bodies and their actions can be over ridden by an appointed body. Now put this is in the present situation. The executive acts in a certain manner and immediately the judiciary is invoked. The judiciary then goes on to 'direct' all institutions of administration into doing things. This is called judicial activism. One saw the emergence of this in Delhi when the Supreme Court of India directed the Delhi Transport Corporation and the Delhi government to run buses on CNG in order to clear the air of pollution. After that judicial activism has been on the rise. I was one of the people to support it since at least one organ of the government was still functioning.

Now I am a little alarmed by the intervention of the judiciary into everything. The last two months in Andhra Pradesh, one would be pardoned for thinking that it is the judiciary that runs the government and that the other organs are redundant. Students want permission to hold rallies on the Osmania University campus and the police promptly denies it. Some one goes to the High Court of Andhra Pradesh which overrules the police and gives permission. Another batch of students wants barricades removed, goes to court the court directs that they be removed with the comments that caused me a wee bit of amusement. In all this the executive is silent and one does not even know if it is functional. The legislature is dysfunctional since almost all legislators from Telangana and Andhra had resigned or has a suspended resignation in hand. Politics is no longer party based but region based. Telangana legislators vs Andhra-Rayalseema legislators. Really an unprecedented situation. Only once in the past in the 1990 when the V P Singh government had to prove its strength on the floor of the Indian Parliament, did one see a call for something like this. Ram Vilas Paswan called for legislators to cut across party lines and vote on the basis of their caste. That did not happen then, but the consolidation of legislators on two sides based on regions and irrespective of parties has happened in Andhra Pradesh. A most ludicrous situation which has neutered the legislature and the executive and given extra teeth to the judiciary, a body that is not even popularly elected. The Judges now run the government while the people's representatives lurk in the background to see what situation favours them. So for all practical purposes the happenings on the Osmania University campus are setting the agenda for politics in Andhra Pradesh and the proliferation of Joint Action Committees on the campus show that there is no one thinking there either. So what is facilitating this? In my next post I shall talk about some inherent problems in Liberal Democracy that get accentuated in the Indian context and make it possible for crises of this sort to emerge.

Leadership Crisis in India - Begins again.

A good State breeds good citizens who in turn breed a good State. So said Aristotle. As is the case with most instances one does not understand the implications of such statements until one is placed in a situation which highlights their importance. While studying as a student, that statement was one of those that sounded genuinely profound but I for one did not understand the full import of it. I have been teaching Aristotle, and for all my conceit which made me believe that I knew what I was talking about, it seems now that even then I did not understand its true significance. But the events of the last few days have finally opened at least a part of my eyes to what deep meaning Aristotle's statement has for all. The culprits again in this instance are the usual suspects, the TRS, the MNS, the Shiv Sena and since Valentine's day is fast approaching we could see action from Sri Rama Sene and the Bajrang Dal. K. Chandrasekhar Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has warned yet again that consequences will be severe and that there would be blood baths if Telangana is not granted in ninety days. The Shiv Sena under the capable leadership of Bal and Udhav Thackeray has ensured that the film My Name is Khan is not screened in Mumbai. The other Thackeray, Raj has been Mumbai for Maharashtriansing for a long time now. But this blog is not a news channel, so I will spare of the details of their wanton acts and get to the root of what all this means.

Starting with the Shiv Sena, the MNS (Maharashtra Navnirman Samithi) it is very clear that their actions are very clearly impinging on the fundamental rights that are guaranteed to every citizen in India. That means Shah Rukh Khan has the right to say what he did about Pakistani Cricketers and the IPL. To stop the screening of his film on the basis of his utterances ultimately shows the resentment of the Shiv Sena when people use their fundamental right to freedom of speech. Especially so when it militates against their brand of communalism. Communalism also undermines another fundamental right, the one that guarantees everyone the right to follow a religion of their choice. To always target people on the basis of the religion they follow smacks of complete intolerance, which needless to say is very bad for society.

Now that brings me to the basic point of what cripples Indian society and regularly throws up crisis after crisis. Intolerance. There was a time when the country was known to have great tolerance to all things different and that lead to a reasonably peaceful coexistence among the citizens of the country. The situation has now changed quite significantly. The Sri Rama Sene does not 'tolerate' what it thinks is not 'Indian' culture. The same is the case with all the other vigilante groups that are sprouting all over the country. It is saddening to see that there are so many people who seem to think they not what Indian culture is when in reality they are clueless about it. Take the concept of democracy for example. Indian democracy is very different from democracy practiced elsewhere in the world. The concept came from the Western World to India. One should have a similar understanding of Valentine's Day. Indians practice it in a way which is quite different from what people in other countries do. To that extent it is now a part of Indian culture just as the practice of Christmas as a festival is. The police are there to take care of any nuisance that may arise out of stupid people doing idiotic things on Valentine's day. There is no necessity for vigilante groups to navigate around various parts of Indian cities and separate men from women.

The protagonists of Telangana cannot 'tolerate' the people of Coastal Andhra. They want them kicked out of Telangana. Or if they remain then they have to be second rate citizens. MNS and Shiv Sena cannot 'tolerate' non-Maharashtrians, especially North Indians in Mumbai and Maharashtra. As a result, two cities that represented true cosmopolitanism, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, namely Hyderabad and Mumbai, are victims of parochialism that threatens to wipe out in a day or two what has been built over a couple of centuries. And India in general starts witnessing things which were never considered possible here, things such as genocide, eliminating of missionaries, chasing men and women who choose a certain lifestyle etc. Intolerance is on the rise everywhere and that threatens to tear the fabric of democracy a bad name or perhaps it is already giving it one. Now you may ask what has this got to do with leadership crisis and with Aristotle. I would say everything.

The State is defined by its leadership that can and does mould good and enlightened laws and political practices and this transforms citizens who in turn lead an enlightened life. I am using the term enlightened here without the rigours of academic definitions which in certain instances confuse rather than clarify. The citizens who are enlightened in turn throw up good leaders who represent the State which is then a good State fostered by good citizens who are fostered by the good State. And so the wheel turns. That is what Aristotle had in mind. The Indian State did not have a bad beginning at all. Very much to the contrary its beginning was rather good. But somewhere the wheel stopped turning or has been punctured. That is there for us to see in the form of the current leadership in all parts of the country and in all parties that are here. That is what makes the Indian State a not so good one and obviously that is telling on the quality of citizens as well. That is not to say that there are no enlightened citizens in India. It is only to say that the State no longer creates a political playground in which there is scope and room for enlightened citizens to participate. Today the sword is mightier than the pen and brawn has got the better of brain. Bad leaders, bad political practices, intolerance and instability have therefore become the order of the day. So today India stands as bad ambassador for democracy. There must be an explanation for this. After all of what use is problem identification if it is not backed up by an explanation of what causes it in the first place? In the next part that is what I shall attempt to do, i.e answer the question of how Indian democracy and leadership got to where they are today. That part will come soon.

Leadership crisis in India - Afterword

I have been away from the blog for a fairly long time because of my involvement in the organizing of a seminar for my department. I therefore apologize to anyone who has been reading and following my blog. I also have to apologize because I am continuing my thoughts on something that I believed I had closed when I said "Leadership crisis in India - Conclusion". I have since, realized that a number of events have taken place and those have drawn my attention to the way in which leadership operates in this country. I have been very proud of my country and defended it with evangelical zeal when anyone spoke against it. My standard line of defence was that nothing is perfect and therefore there is no necessity to castigate India because there are a few things about it that are not palatable. However, in the last few days even this patriot in me has been jolted by some happenings. The first thing that shocked me was the fact that school children are now being "drafted" into political campaigns. In the quest for a separate Telangana the leadership of the cause has decided not to spare even children who certainly do not have any proper understanding of the issue. In fact, let me say that they do not have the ability to understand such complex issues yet. The part that puts fear in me is that this either suggests a complete bankruptcy of ideas on the part of the political leadership that is presently espousing this cause or more dangerously it is an attempt to indoctrinate young people even before they are out of schools, in some instances out of primary and secondary schools. This to me presents the possibility of having generations of people who are akin to programmed robots and whose functioning would be based in automaton conformity. This act therefore is not just bad strategy but bad ethics as well.

The trends that this country is witnessing are those which should set alarm bells off in any mind that is capable of cogitation. While the Telangana issue itself is one that represents a problematique (a source of many problems of a certain nature) it is now being compounded by the leadership of the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Samithi (MNS) in Mumbai and Maharashtra. The various different Thackaray scions seem to want to keep Mumbai to themselves and drive everyone who is not a Maharashtrian out or keep them as second rate citizens, an effort similar to what the protagonists of Telangana are trying to do with Hyderabad.The difference is only in the degrees of equivocation but the intention is the same in both instances. I can recollect that a little over fifteen years ago Bangalore witnessed riots because the Kannadigas desired to throw out Tamilians from their city. All these developments are not really those that are the outcome of the desires of citizens but almost necessarily political machinations to create new constituencies and exploit them as vote banks. In support of such leaderships are "academicians" who label India a 'multi-national' State, a most terrible and cynical description of what India is.

Indian Nationalism that was once carefully built and nurtured by patriots during the Indian Independence Movement is today threatened by fissiparous tendencies that are based in an increasing parochialism. It is convenient to say that this is an unnecessarily alarmist interpretation of the present. My response to that is that those who do not learn from history are only condemning the future generations to a life that they do not deserve. The sacrifices of the past are today meaningless and are being mocked at by the present. In my considered opinion the future deserves better.

I had erroneously believed that I had closed the discussion on leadership crisis by naming the second part of the post as 'conclusion'. I had not realized that there was much more to say. That realization has dawned upon as I started writing this bit. I therefore have decided to re-open the issue and perhaps what I have now titled 'afterword' will have to be seen as 'foreword'. In the near future I shall start writing about what ails the leadership of this country and how that is destroying the fabric of this country by targeting all forms of social constructions including education. As someone involved with education it is my responsibility to continue to write against these unfortunate tendencies that are plaguing India. From my next post onwards I shall restart my thoughts on leadership crisis in India.