End of a marriage of convenience

Will the UPA government headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh survive or will it not? That is the question everybody has in mind as the government is going to face a confidence vote on July 22. The Left’s withdrawal of support to the government over the government’s decision to go ahead with the Indo-U.S. civil nuclear deal may have precipitated the present crisis, but the UPA dispensation is bound to experience this stalemate at any time during the remaining year of its tenure because the UPA-Left alliance forged for preventing the Sangh Parivar from coming to power was a marriage of convenience that was not meant to last. Why should we shed tears over predicted and predictable end of the wedlock that had never been smooth?
It would have been a surprise if comrades led by Prakash Karat had continued to support the UPA government even after it announced its commitment to the deal, because anti-Americanism is a sort of religion for communists of all hues in the country. Policies of the U.S. administration around the world give credence to general apprehension that U.S. hegemony is not just a fantasy of a paranoiac mind. If you think it is, just turn your eyes to the Middle East. Yes, the comrades are not entirely wrong. They have gone wrong when they have conjured up an ideal fantasy world where there are good guys like them fighting bad guys like Bush. They don’t see gray areas in this neat black and white world that exists in their imagination.
In the annals of history, these comrades who are now fretting and fuming about the American imperialism are not always seen siding with good guys. They are not known to have been outraged when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in August 1978. They are not known to have condemned when the erstwhile Soviet Union sent over 150,000 troops and 2,500 tanks to Hungary in 1956 after Hungarians revolted against the Soviet-installed communist regime. The invaders replaced reformist Prime Minister Imre Nagy with a pro-Soviet stooge. Nagy, a democratic-minded leader with a huge popular support and not a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussain, was among those executed in the purge that followed. Twelve years later, the Soviet troops drove their tanks into Czechoslovakia to replace the Prague Spring of Alexander Dubcek with the wintry chill of communist dictatorship. It was not known to have sparked protests among the communists in the country. When the Soviet Union carried out its brand of imperialism, our comrades refused to see it.
Without going into the nitty-gritty of the nuclear deal, one can see that the Left’s opposition to it has been driven by anti-Americanism. But we must also thank the Left parties for kicking off a nation-wide debate on the deal. They say that the deal is against India’s vital interests, that it will hamper the country’s independent foreign policy and restrict our strategic autonomy, that it is harmful for the nation’s sovereignty and that it symbolises India’s embracing of a strategic alliance with the U.S.
The country’s post-Independence history belies all these fears. India has always put its foot down on issues that concern its vital interests, right or wrong. The technological apartheid following the Pokaran-1 in 1974 did not prevent the nation from carrying out Pokaran-2 in 1998. Ironically, the Left that is now very vocal about the country’s strategic autonomy with regard to future nuclear tests campaigned against nuclear weapons in India following the Vajpayee government's nuclear tests in 1998. The Left predicted doomed future when India’s economy was liberalised and it termed globalisation as enforcement of U.S. hegemony through backdoor. You may, like me, be no ardent admirer of globalisation, but you can easily see how wrong the comrades were. India’s phenomenal economic and technological growth is a testimony to its strength in the face of difficulties.
There was a time (not long back) when the country was not allowed to import a supercomputer. Today, it is an exporter of supercomputers and a leader in the IT sector. Despite sanctions, our space programme now works for its planned mission to moon. Its progress in biotechnology and nanotechnology sectors matches only with its leap in the IT field.
The problem with the comrades is that they are living in their fossilised Cold War world where good and bad are drawn in black and white colours. The mindset of the communists has its roots in their disconnect with the freedom struggle in the wake of their opposition to the Quit India Movement in 1942. That pro-British stance was taken after the Soviet Union was attacked by Hitler and thus became an ally of Britain. The communists in the country proclaimed that India's Independence was a sham. The disconnect was complete by then and the communists' sense of isolation from the Indian mainstream is reflected in their opposition to the nuclear deal.
But I really pity the comrades who have found themselves in an unenviable situation because of their adventurism. I pity them more because of their predicament of having to vote with the BJP against the UPA government and to announce in advance that they would support the Congress-led UPA if that would stave off the Sangh Parivar after the next election. Funny, isn't it. But that is Indian politics.

('Marriage de convenance', a painting by Sir William Quiller Orchardson 1835-1910)

Saving Democracy

Patriotism has never been something that sweeps me off my feet. But I like one thing about the country of my birth: its inclusiveness and resilience. If I were an Israeli citizen, I would certainly be looking for an excuse to escape the collective guilt of having carved out a nation through annexation and colonisation of another people’s land. If I were a Turk, I would be struggling to live with the bloodied history of officially sanctioned expulsion and genocide of Armenians at the birth of modern Turkey. India, for that matter, has no history of ethnic cleansing though millions died in the sectarian violence during the Partition. While Pakistan was conceived as an Islamic nation, India remained a secular and democratic country thanks to its inclusiveness and resilience.
But are we becoming growingly sceptical of democracy? It may be difficult to answer, but I feel that a significant number of people don’t care a hoot about democracy, not because they are anti-democratic in their attitude. If you talk to them, you can measure their inner sense of disconnect with institutions that make democracy what it is.
We see democracy-sceptics among people from all walks of life. When I went to my favourite grocery shop yesterday, I hit upon the topic of price rise while I chatted with the shop assistant. He said that the common man like him was bearing the brunt when politicians were fighting out within and without legislatures. “What is the use of squandering crores of rupees for holding elections to the assembly and Parliament just for allowing political parties to wage battles?” I retorted that democracy was costly but worthy. “Are we not lucky that we are not citizens of Pakistan or North Korea or Zimbabwe or some other countries ruled by tin pot dictators?” I voiced them as rhetorical questions just to convey my uneasiness about the people’s tendency to spit on democracy when they are enjoying its fruits.
The shop assistant is a semi-literate guy whose idea about democracy is not as erudite as that we expected of people like us, the educated. It is rather disconcerting to know that there are strong democracy-sceptics among us as well. Recently, a senior university Professor told me that she had been astonished by many of her students airing their view that democracy was useless in the country. She said she was perturbed enough to visualise a time when we would all wake up one day to realise that we were no longer living in democracy. If the university campuses were not the places that could stimulate the spirit of dissent and democracy, we were facing real danger, I told her by way of sharing her concern.
I think a major factor that is driving people to be skeptical of democracy and democratic institutions is the feeling that people have no direct involvement in democratic process other than the right to cast their votes. The political parties and organisations have been allowed to hijack all public spheres and they are seen as sole beneficiaries of all fruits of democracy. Unless this is reversed and citizens are brought back to the centre of democratic process, we will witness what the Professor has chillingly visualised. I think we have not yet run out of time and are still able to lock the stable door before the horse has bolted.