No room for nuance in this fragile republic
In the rush to condemn Ashis Nandy and demand that he be jailed, no one bothered to understand what exactly he had said about corruption and caste
It is symptomatic of the times we live in, of the climate of political
discourse that we have contributed to, that even relatively innocuous
statements can get so easily misrepresented and twisted to convey a
meaning that is diametrically opposite to what was said and meant. The
Jaipur Literature Festival 2013, which until the morning of Republic Day
had managed to successfully steer clear of any controversy, was
suddenly rocked by angry protests based upon (and this must be stressed)
a total misreading of remarks made by Ashis Nandy.
The panel discussion on “The Republic of Ideas,” featuring IBN7 Managing Editor Ashutosh, author and Tehelka editor
Tarun Tejpal, historian Patrick French, philosopher Richard Sorabji,
and social psychologist Ashis Nandy, was moderated by the author and
publisher, Urvashi Butalia. Following a fascinating exchange on the
“promise” of the Indian Republic and Constitution, the discussion turned
to the theme of corruption and the significance of the anti-corruption
protests led by Anna Hazare.
Making a passionate plea to deconstruct the sociology of corruption,
Tarun Tejpal argued that we need to understand the “corruption” of the
poor and the marginalised as a necessary strategy to break through the
stifling nature of our rules, regulations and laws. Characterising
Indian society as deeply stratified, hierarchical and oppressive, our
laws and rules, he claimed, are mostly designed to “keep out” the
erstwhile excluded strata from having their say. The corruption of
“people like us” — an elite which has both the resources and power to
subvert the system — often goes unnoticed, and if discovered, rarely
results in prosecution. The misdemeanours of the “others,” in contrast,
not only get caught, but also generate outrage, in part because they do
not have the necessary skills to successfully cover up their corruption.
Grounded in earlier remarks
Subsequent remarks made by Ashis Nandy need to be read and understood in
the context of what Tarun Tejpal said speaking before Nandy did.
Agreeing with Tejpal, Nandy went on to argue that such “corruption” of
the excluded — the Dalits, tribals, Other Backward Classes (OBC) and
minorities — is inevitable if they are to break out from the bonds of an
oppressive web of rules and regulations. He went on to say, referring
to both himself and Richard Sorabji, that if they “arranged” to get
fellowships for their children at Harvard or Oxford, as part of a trade
in mutual and selective favours, none will comment about that, as if it
is axiomatic that the fellowship was awarded on the basis of merit.
Politicians or leaders of the oppressed strata, being new to the game
and relatively untutored in the skills of manipulation, are unlikely to
seek academic fellowships as a form of graft, and are more likely to
covet and corner licences to operate petrol pumps. These pumps are
publicly noticeable and can provoke outrage. Their licensees are linked
to their “corrupt” benefactors, who are then condemned by the chattering
classes in metropolitan cities.
So far so good. Nandy then went on to more provocatively stretch the
argument, asserting that it is precisely this kind of “corruption” that
has “saved” the Republic and democracy by enabling a degree of social
and economic mobility and pluralising the composition of India’s elite.
Furthermore, he argued, that it is most likely the list of “corrupt”
could be inordinately dominated by Dalits, tribals, minorities and OBCs.
Despite his prefacing his last remarks, saying that what he was about
to say may shock many people, and that he nevertheless wished to stress
the point about how we understand corruption, many in the audience (and
one on the panel) completely missed Nandy’s point, and immediately
accused him of casteist bias, calling upon him to withdraw his remarks
and tender an apology. Some in the audience demanded that he should be
charged under the Protection of Civil Rights Act for hurting the
sentiments of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
Competitive outrage follows
Nandy’s protestations that what he said and meant was completely the
opposite of what he was being charged with were not persuasive once the
atmosphere was charged with heightened emotions. Competitive outrage,
taking on the familiar form favoured by some overly strident and
aggressive TV anchors, evidently gives no quarter to nuanced arguments,
any irony, or even black humour. When Nandy characterised the former
Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda (now in jail), as India’s first
dollar billionaire, he was hardly extolling the virtues of corruption or
turning a blind eye to the “perfidies” of upper caste politicians. At
best, in an underhand and sly way, he was expressing admiration for the
abilities of a tribal leader in matching up to what has hitherto been an
exclusive preserve of India’s upper caste elite.
Accusations of Nandy of being anti-Dalit/tribal/minority groups, the
calls for registering a FIR against him, and demanding that he should be
arrested would, in our better days, have been dismissed as an
irrelevant, if not comic, aside. Such innocent days have faded,
unfortunately, into a distant past. So quick are we now to take offence
and demand immediate retributory action against alleged offenders that
we almost never take a moment to pause, to ascertain the facts,
understand what was said and meant, in what context, and to what ends.
All we want is action, and now!
Signals shrinking discourse
Subsequent demands by the Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Mayawati, by the
chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes P.L. Punia, and
others, to arrest Ashis Nandy, even though none of them was present
during the discussion, illustrates the danger of a growing kind of
prickliness and intolerance. Worse still, such occasions are used by
politicians to signal their commitment to their constituencies and shore
up their images. In the process we are left with a diminished public
discourse. Even liberals, usually quick to defend “freedom of speech,”
advocate caution and temperance in the expression of reactions to
intemperate allegations of the kind made against Nandy. Is this stance,
one wonders, a compensatory guilt, marking what is politically correct,
an obverse privileging of the erstwhile dispossessed?
Ashis Nandy’s choice of words, phrases, and examples can be questioned.
He is not an organised and scintillating public speaker. One can also
differ with his argument and analysis, for instance, his failure to
distinguish between “corruption of the poor” and the “corruption of
their leaders,” whose subversion of rules often results in them robbing
the very poor who are also their constituents. Nevertheless, Nandy’s
argument that the “rules of the game” have been set by an elite class to
which he belongs, which remains a privileged lot, and therefore, that
the deliberate subversion of those rules is an inevitable strategy for
those striving for survival and upward mobility, certainly has merit.
Clamping down on nuanced utterances and elliptical statements of the
kind Nandy made will only make us a poorer democracy and Republic.
(Harsh Sethi is Consulting Editor, Seminar magazine.)
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