Barun Roy: A divide-and-rule democracy

ASIA FILE

The political class has too much to lose to allow various divisions in India to fade away over a period of time and so does its best to perpetuate them, and even creates new ones along the way.

What should come first? Banning Fashion TV or making sure that all our villages have safe drinking water and all our public hospitals are fit for human beings? The question is straight enough and should answer itself. The fact that Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi considers being a moral policeman is a legitimate ministerial duty in a democracy "" the world's largest at that "" only proves that our attitude problem (to development, to social questions, to everything) is deeper than it seems.

With such frivolous preoccupations, clearly meant to put up a mock play and win points at the hustings, India won't be a developed nation in a hundred years, a society having the widest possible spread of rights, privileges, welfare, and quality of life. Welfare doesn't seem to be central to the thinking of India's governing democrats, no matter who they are. The whole game is to use democracy as a ploy to take people for a ride and serve selfish political ends. Or else, why are we still talking of quotas for backward classes? Why are we dividing India and perpetuating backwardness? Sixty years after we became an independent nation, why do we still have scheduled tribes and castes? Why haven't these Indians been able to come into the economic mainstream?

The answer is simple: Because India's politicians "" nationalists, socialists, communists, conservatives, or however they choose to describe themselves "" don't want a socially, economically united India. The more the divisions, exploitations, discriminations and imbalances, the easier it is for them to manipulate the deprived classes, write inspiring election manifestoes, make headline-grabbing promises and use groups as vote banks. Vote bank politics is what Indian democracy has been reduced to, just a numbers game.

Perhaps the most shameless of all vote-bank politicking is the Samajwadi Party's election manifesto in Uttar Pradesh, in which it promises, among other things, to make all education in the state free up to the Master's level and offers to implement the decision within hours of its government taking the oath of office. Now, what is it supposed to mean? Mulayam Singh Yadav very well knows he can't fulfil this promise without inflicting a major dent on his budget. Yet he feels no shame in making it and even expects people to join in the celebration of his falsehood.

This is how India is governed. And when there are as many shades in its politics as there are leaves on a tree, when each political leader has his or her personal political ambition and hidden agenda, when all unities are nothing but appeasements to keep the inherent disunities under wrap, what can one expect of India than the reality of it that hits us from day to day?

Above 9 per cent GDP growth? Yes, we do have that. A flattering stock index? We have that, too. Glittering shopping malls, costly multiplexes, glitzy residential towers, fast food joints, fashion shows, open skies, foreign cars, everything that jogs the sense of the good living, we have them all. But are we a developed country, or going to be one any time soon? No. As long as we will be driven by petty politics in everything we do, as long as we will look at all social problems as exploitable political opportunities, and hoodwinking people to win elections remains a desirable goal, we won't be one, no matter what the statistics say. Divisions will remain, poverty will prevail, children who should be going to school will be slaving for a pittance, patients will be treated as fleas in public hospitals that are no better than cowsheds, villages will go without electricity, and farmers will continue to be driven to suicide. It can't be otherwise, because nothing would then be left for ruling politicians to build their promises on or opponents to find an excuse to burn more buses.

The other day, I was watching an English news channel on TV. It was showing the tragedy of a farmer family trying to pay off in kind a loan it couldn't repay in cash, becoming in the process a bonded labour, condemned for life. But before I had time to shed a tear for this unfortunate outcast of Indian democracy, the programme switched to the merry world of Bollywood and the upcoming wedding in its first family, the Bachchans.

That's India, Janus-like. Both its faces are real and equally shining. Straddling the divide are the politicians, enjoying the goodies of one side and reaping the benefits of the other. They will never let the divide disappear since that will eradicate their very livelihood. And there are too many of them around for Indian democracy to achieve a decent level of maturity and Indian society to reach the kind of equilibrium where a society can be called progressive and developed.