I/II. http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/no-mandate
No mandate is a mandate to silence opposition Hartosh Singh Bal The year 1984 is being invoked a lot in the wake of the Narendra Modi victory. Even though the circumstances were different then, it was the last time a single party won an absolute majority in an Indian election. That election saw another new prime minister, bearing the stain of majoritarian violence and speaking for the young, come to power offering technocratic solutions that would move India beyond caste and religion. The failure of that project, which was burdened with heightened expectations, should remain a cautionary tale, but that is not the reason I want to invoke 1984. I had just finished school in June 1984 when Operation Bluestar took place. Over a game of badminton, my neighbourhood friends and I began discussing the army action with an avidity that comes easily at that age. When I expressed the view that while the action was necessary, the way it was planned and executed was wrong, one of my acquaintances, whom I thought I knew well, reacted in anger, "Don't listen to him, he is a sardar." I was clean-shaven then, but it was at that moment that I first realised what it means to differ from the majority view, and to be labeled for it. Today I would have expressed my views more succinctly: the cure was worse than the disease. And it is a sentiment that I believe applies equally well to what is transpiring around us today. The end of the Gandhi dynasty--and I do believe that this is what we are witnessing--was necessary, but I also believe that the same is more or less true in this case: the cure is worse than the disease. Irrespective of the majority verdict--public opinion changes with time--the question here is simply of being honest to the truth as I see it. In the cacophony of support for Modi, there will be no shortage of those like BJP's national treasurer Piyush Goyal, who on Times Now on the very day of the verdict, faced with a few journalists who disagreed with him, labeled them Congress sympathisers. As a matter of fact, over the course of the past few years, the only public critics of the dynasty were to be found among this limited set of journalists. Having shot from their shoulders, men like Piyush Goyal today, in their moment of triumph, appear fearful at the prospect of being at the receiving end. This intolerance of dissent was one of the fears of a Modi victory. We can wait and see whether the tendencies Goyal so vividly expressed will be heightened over the next few days or whether the party will seek to curb them, but there is no reason to be so uncertain over one of the implications of this verdict: it is emphatically majoritarian. The case of Punjab provides the perfect illustration. In the facile nature of what has passed for the analysis of inconvenient facts after this victory, Arun Jaitley's defeat from Amritsar has been attributed to local anti-incumbency against the Akalis. But the BJP won two adjacent constituencies in the same state--Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur. Of the three seats, Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur are Hindu-dominated, while Amritsar is a Sikh-dominated constituency. When a senior leader cannot even win a Sikh-dominated constituency, where is the hope that the BJP can command support among a substantial portion of Muslims in this country? Never before in this country has a prime minister been elected so emphatically while being so unrepresentative of the minorities. In the face of this fact--and the weight of more than a 170 million people makes this a substantial fact--to claim, as some senior editors have, in television studios or in print, that we are entering a post-ideological, post-caste, post-religion era of the Indian electorate, is absurd, especially when you consider that almost all the people making this claim share a common religious identity. The claim may well be true of the mandate in parliament, which is determined by the first past the post system, but to argue that these rules, which we have all agreed to adopt, actually mirror social reality is to deceive ourselves. The combined vote share of those accused of playing identity and caste politics--the Congress, Nitish Kumar and Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar, and the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh--far exceeds that of the NDA. If the perception of the mandate overrides this reality, eventually the mandate will be overturned because reality cannot be wished away, as Rajiv Gandhi so quickly found out. I was hoping for some acknowledgement of this fact in Modi's speeches on his day of victory. His failure to use the words "Muslim" or "minority" was striking. These are not difficult words to pronounce; their absence and the rhetoric that was in their place suggest a literary parallel with George Orwell' s 1984. Development for everyone, say Modi and his supporters. Electricity does not discriminate, they add. But of course it does. Development that does not recognise inequality heightens it. In the same way, to fail to recognise Muslims and other minorities as categories is to not be able to cater to their specific problems, whether economic or those stemming from apprehensions about this verdict. It did little to reassure such anxieties that one of Modi's first public acts as prime minister-designate was to perform a grand puja in Varanasi, accompanied by priests chanting hymns and the din of conch shells. There is no shortage of cheerleaders for this verdict, but for democracy to function, the sceptics have to find their voice. We will all have to recognise that no mandate is a mandate to silence opposition. Neither is this mandate reason to silence oneself. II. Silence Is Deafening, Are My Fears Unfounded? Nandita Das My greatest immediate fear is the attack on freedom of expression. http://m.outlookindia.com/article.aspx/?290737 The election of a new government in India is the result of a democratic exercise so vast that any critique of the mandate needs to be respectful. And more so, if it is a pre-emptive one. Yet, there are good reasons why some of us are fearful. Let's begin with the much-proclaimed promise of 'development' and the great enthusiasm among the middle and elite classes for the 'Gujarat model'. Just for the record, the state has always been among the more enterprising and prosperous ones. And in the last decade, even by the simplistic yardstick of economic growth, Maharashtra, Bihar and Tamil Nadu have done better than Gujarat. In any case, economic growth is not the only measure of success, as a large number of Indians are marginalised and suffer on many other counts. Will their voices be heard in an economic model driven above all by corporate policies? Will there be any focus on social measures that are so crucial for the underprivileged? Will the 'development' be inclusive and for all? While we are being asked to move past the 2002 carnage, there is no hesitation in invoking memories of the Partition or going as far back as Babar! What scares me is that let alone any remorse, apology or concern for those whose scars have still not healed, there is a fearful rise in prejudice and its legitimacy. Clearly evident in these elections is a religiously charged ethos, created through the campaign, revealing that under the 'development' story the core remains divisive politics. Amit Shah's speeches in Muzaffarnagar, Modi's refusal to wear the skull cap, while he wore every other headgear during the campaign, Praveen Togadia asking Muslims to be thrown out of "Hindu areas", to name a few. But my greatest immediate fear is the attack on freedom of expression. Democracy works because there is room for differences that enable people to change their minds and governments and voice their dissent in ways that are civil and democratic. The BJP and its supporters have always been too eager to silence critics through blatant censorship and vandalism. I have personally suffered during the release of *Fire* and the making of *Water*. But never did I know that even making a harmless appeal to vote for secular parties would invite such wrath from the Modi supporters. Today my differing view has been responded to by such crass tweets like "Take your kid and go to Pakistan"! The dangerous subtext is alarming. In 2008, I made *Firaaq*, a film on how ordinary people grappled with the aftermath of the Gujarat carnage. The film did not point fingers, yet the stand taken against violence was clear. While it got much appreciation and accolades, it also got flak from those who chose to see it with a less open mind. The release of the film saw dismal returns, and I was told that primarily it was because it came too close to the elections. Nevertheless, the film did get released. But today, if I had to release the film, even after the elections and the projected victory of the NDA, I think it would face far more blatant opposition. As an artist, I feel vulnerable and threatened much more today than I have ever felt before. For the first time, I can feel media self-censoring itself, playing safe--an indication of times to come. The silence is going to be deafening and the naysayers very few. Today I ask myself, are my fears truly unfounded? -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
