It's all one big party over here.

It's interesting to think of the bipartisan politics in India as a fight for corporate sponsorship.

Right-wing parties were born for alliances with corporates—they advocate national unity on convenient (nationalist, religious, communitarian, or all of the above) principles, and Progress and Development and Meritocracy; any number of fair-sounding things which equitably build on the existing inequities.

On the other hand, anything that is anti-BJP can be pro-Congress—All are welcome. Feudal if you're into that sort of thing, inclusive as against Gujarat's shining picture of progress, dithering on Kashmir so that you know they're really really thinking it through. And the resulting image of being above all things Liberal is ideal for India Shining.

Once in power, these governments essentially do the same things. But the Congress' image, its 'sign-value' as it were, seems a probable reason for why it's ahead.

In that light, the current flurry of dissent would be excellent for India's democratic image, so long as it can be contained. Not to worry, they're on it—the Lokpal report (not bill) was tabled yesterday, they're trying "all possible means" to get into dialogue with the Maoists, squeaky-clean Kalam is certifying the safety of Kudankulam, Kanimozhi composed poetry in Tihar for a couple of months, and Anna's probably being funded by the BJP.

'Sign-value' is therefore an incredible tool for reformers—the Right to Education Act, or the Women's Reservation Bill. I don't mean to undervalue the policy establishment which no doubt works hard to bring these reforms about regardless of the government. But this provides an immediate impetus, a concrete expression for the ethical ethos hanging in the air, garnering political will to move these things along. It reduces the need for patience in public service, in itself a huge and welcome change.

on policymakers

In the 1970s, Sam Smith wrote in the DC Gazette that "formerly unpretentious occupations" like teaching, journalism and politics were getting ahead of themselves, and like doctors, lawyers or engineers, wanted to call themselves a profession. The setting up of 'journalism schools' and faff about professional 'ethics' was all a front for limiting access to a profession whose significance in democracy was its acceptance of anyone with words and an opinion, or even just an opinion. Limited access means monopoly means money and screening of candidates, he said. He also linked real integrity with home-grownness—health is not bought from doctors, etc.

Now, whatever my view on journalism as a profession, it appears to me that government, rather than politics, deserves to be looked at in the same way. We know politicians and governance professionals (bureaucrats, think tanks, people like that) decide how things work, in the ratio of final decision to exploration of all possible options given the political, economic, social status quo and narrowing down to a few desirable options. We would admit that specialists do all the groundwork. Yet in polite conversation, media trials, anywhere where the so-called common man's views are expressed, the underlying presumption is not to the role of the politician, but to that of the bureaucrat (for now let's call him that, not restricting this category merely to the much-stereotyped babu). How? We don't look at the facts of the case and decide which way the government in question should decide for our interest to be fulfilled; we don't really know what the facts are. We come up with the scenario that needs to be achieved (to each her own) and trash the relevant persons for not getting there. And then say people need to change, else the country will never improve.

I shall acknowledge at this stage that this post does an logically unsound thing. It addresses a problem anecdotally observed on the assumption that it is generally the case, and then locates the reasons why it should be the case in the fact that its causes exist. However, bear with me. I have no solutions, only problems.

So why is this the case? In the first place, the invisibility of bureaucrats enables us to forget what exactly they do and the fact that they're trained in it. Secondly, politicians come along on air and explain simplified-into-political-positions versions of events to further aid this amnesia. Then the media takes over and makes a hullabaloo about the positions in question, and the criminal or elite past of the people defending each side. Effect: decision-making process effectively obscured. Apparent uses: Allows the professionals to get on with the job, leaving the politicians to defend them (they've got to earn their keep somehow). The downside of this is that the outcry and disillusionment with the perceived outcome affects the effectiveness of the intended outcome, the credibility of the process and the credibility of the government. Apart from a few RK Laxman cartoons, nothing much happens to the policymakers, except that they have to spend some time supplying the arsenal for the politicians. If you notice, most accusations against the Congress have been responded to with counter-allegations that the BJP did the same when they were in power. If you think about it, there's a sort of bureaucratic determinism running below the surface there that's not visibly accountable to anybody.

The facts of the decisions taken are never revealed—understandably, there's a reason why experts are handling these, some things shouldn't be simplified. Yet the repeated halt of parliamentary proceedings indicates that there is some need to explain the government's actions to its people, whether they be represented by the Opposition or (self-appointed leaders of) civil society directly. In other words, there's an increasing demand for visible democracy, (even if it is be spearheaded by, maybe even limited to, certain social groups) and the corresponding demand for putting away the professional secrecy that Smith so feared. Not, of course, that we believe in the kind of de-professionalizing he's talking about. But like the growing demand to be informed consumers of the services of doctors (which doctors of the old school take as an insult to their credibility), the tax-paying public now demands the same of its government. Value for money.

Perhaps this would require policymakers to be like cricketers—professionals constantly accountable to the public for their time and pay, but even more so because it's not merely at the level of implementation, but also at the level of policy. Actually, just showing results on the field would be enough, but that's harder to accomplish. In the given scenario, a utopia where we only worry about the effectiveness of the implementation could only come about if people were as informed and interested in governance as they are about cricket. But if the IPL keeps up the overdose, and Anna keeps blogging, we might have a chance yet.

December 7, 2011

It's so easy to jump up and down shouting Free Speech! and to castigate anyone who doesn't as conservative and other bad things. My problem is that it's too easy—it's the way the uninformed manufacture instant opinions on every issue, as soon as they see the ticker. Or the way it's manufactured for them, and they don't even notice.

Kapil Sibal wanting to block internet sites which are "threatening, abusive, harassing, blasphemous, objectionable, defamatory... or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever" is vague and constitutes a threat to the free speech it's supposed to preserve.

Omar Abdullah's exhortation to practicality is much more attractive (and so is he): "For me, this isn't an airy-fairy ideological issue, it's a real problem." Of course readers want to be understanding of the government's compulsions, and to act mature. Because, if you notice, it's the same sort of rhetoric parents use on kids who yearn to be all grown-up.

It's important to curb violence, and so incendiary sentiments (think Congress leaders in 1984), unlike expletives describing political leaders, are a problem. It's the classic face-off between paternalism and violence. Ideally, the State should stop this at the level of the violence itself, and not the speech. But the fact that we recognize reasonable limitations to free speech recognizes two things: one, that violence as an effect of speech cannot always be checked at the level of the violence itself, and second and more importantly, that speech itself can constitute an act of violence. Perhaps politicians focus on the first because the second is perceived as subjective and nebulous. Perhaps the second is more important because in India we have not arrived at any consensus in public discourse on what is free speech and what is incendiary. And when we are confused, or have arrived at another of those split-second decisions, we go burn a bus to get it all out.

To put all this into perspective: Anna Hazare finally has a point. He says that people get too worked up about symbolic violence, like slapping a minister, and too little about real violence, like farmer suicides. Or maybe more that it's powerful people being insulted versus powerless people getting hurt. Or maybe it's politics versus development. Point being, he says "Just one slap?" (killer line) and a bunch of NCP activists pour into his fiefdom and break stuff. But this Gandhi of the digital age has it all under control. He's got the incident recorded on CD, to be revealed "at an appropriate time". This is perhaps why his movement is eternally To be continued.