On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 5:16 PM, Pranesh Prakash <[email protected]>wrote:
> > > Earlier nationalism provided a framework of values through people like > > Gandhi, Gaffar Khan and Kumarappa. They walked their talk. But as > > nationalism yielded to the nation state, value frames got dessicated > > into policy frames. Gradually, politics became managerial. > > I feel this is pretty incisive analysis. > Strongly disagree, I don't think they "walked their talk" at a time when any sense of democracy was in place. Democracy is easy to do as oligarchy but very difficult to do as a democracy. A more aware voter emerged with time and has helped to fragment the politics. If the sense of "nationalism" extends only to "Gandhi, Gaffar Khan and Kumarappa", then I don't think it lasted very long post independence. I think we're measuring degrees across generations with an informational asymmetry and, a more substantive difference, a massive increase in available assets in the present generation. I don't think ethics change much but incentives do. In other words, the early politicians hadn't dealt with a reasonably sized population that was aware of the political stakes. Agreed there remain many for whom the democratic process is a mystery even today, however, that number is far reduced by seismic events such as the emergence of strong right-wing and left-wing politics at the national level. Nehru et al, had a much easier barometer to face. Is "Managerial" code for bureaucratisation? Because that questions the form of govt besides the ethic. > > > Thirdly, there is something about democracy that banalises ethics. > > Ethics get managerialised, banalised or become a collection of > > regulations. It becomes a rote procedure rather than a set of > > individual initiatives. It is reduced to a set of do’s and don’ts and > > as a result it lacks inventiveness. An ethical act, rather than being > > the norm is seen as a signal for deviancy. > Can you describe these ethical acts? > Ethics becomes a singular > > act of whistle blowing where the ethical act is seen as rare, even > > eccentric and vulnerable. > > This isn't "about democracy", just practices of democracy that reduce it > to majoritarianism decided via voting. > But do you see India as majoritarianism at play or is this the umpteenth theoretically sound analysis about India that I disagree with? I think we're seeing a progressive reduction in the size of "swing" vote banks in India. Politicians that identify and secure the loyalty of the fringes better tend to win elections. And hence we've generally had a rise in the value of a seat in Parliament not commensurate with the weight in political structure that it would ideally command. The marginal value of a majority vote, measured as a stake in the structure of distribution of power, is pretty low. That is of course if you see majority as at least a plurality. Do we ever take decisions with a sense of even a minimum sense of plurality in our democracy? I
