An Insufficient Democracy - The Defense of Arvind Kejriwal

The way people have been swayed over a period of two weeks is nothing short of unbelievable. Around the time of Christmas, AK was still being hailed as a messiah from the heavens, as a savior of the common-man, as the last bastion against corruption - he was almost called the son of God. Today, he is nearly a criminal: he is a fool whose understanding of politics and its nuances is worse than those who sit in their armchairs and spew venom on him.

"Delhi ka CM pagal hai", "He is an anarchist", "He is the Item-Girl of Indian Politics" - I don't think anyone in the recent past has been showered with as many vivid adjectives during such a short period of time. As the anarchist staged a dharna on the roads of Delhi, people fumed and cried foul. During the days preceding AAP's great run to victory, protests identical to this had become synonymous with the name 'Arvind Kejriwal'; they did, by no small measure, influence the outcome of the 2013 elections.

People criticized him even during those days, and they are right to carry on in the same vein for nothing has changed with Arvind Kejriwal. But why are his own supporters up in arms? What has changed now that the very same dharna has become unacceptable? Did the voters of Delhi bring AAP into power hoping that the Aam Aadmi Party would change its colours and become another Congress or a BJP? When you vote for a zealot, you will get a zealot - not a tame country mouse.

"Why did you not stage a dharna when a child was found abandoned in a rubbish heap a few weeks ago? Why are you silent, Kejriwal?" challenged a man who claims to be the Voice of India. Suddenly, the various times AK had not staged dharnas became important to people. Arvind Kejriwal was using these cheap tactics only to further his Lok Sabha ambitions. Everyone had something to say about the wolf in common man's clothing.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - The Man in the Arena, Theodore Roosevelt

When Delhi voted the AAP into an unprecedented second place, I was shocked like many others. Here was a man with absolutely no history in governance, and people had trusted him to go all the way in the capital of the country. Kejriwal, since the beginning, has maintained that his one goal in life is to eradicate corruption. To hand over the reins of a large city to such a man was always a risky prospect - but Democracy allows people to make such choices. And people made that choice when they undertook the risk: corruption had quite clearly leeched its way into their very bones and they took a leap of faith.

Today, Kejriwal defends the same promises that he made. He may be a fool, but he is not a hypocrite. This characteristic of his makes for a strange politician. Democracy doesn't support such men who walk their talk. Democracy is at its best when it does nothing; when people are lulled into a sense of security, they absolutely love their leaders. People may appreciate the talk, but they are averse to actions. In the great average that such a political system creates, a man with ideas stands out like a clown in rainbow clothing.

I am certain that an intelligent man in the CM's chair will not hold protests in Delhi's cold streets if he was able to solve his troubles sitting at home. Clearly unable to effect change from his chair, he came down to the roads in order to utilize the only method he seems to know. Whether this is right or wrong is debatable, but the people who voted him into power shouldn't really have a problem with it. He is, after all, only trying to deliver on his promises.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar.

The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-

-For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men-

-Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man. - Mark Antony, "Julius Caesar" - William Shakespaere 

"But Arvind Kejriwal is an honourable man" - I cannot help but draw parallels. The above speech ended with the words - "Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt". When everyone says the same thing again and again, even if it is untrue, it will become fact. 

Dialogue and opinions are an integral part of democracy. Everyone has the right to voice his or her views, but with media shouting its 'news' into peoples' ears, the aam aadmi no longer knows what to do. We must remember that the aam aadmi is one who laughs at Kumar Vishwas' racist and sexist humour; surely, such a man cannot hold his own opinions when he's being pummeled into submission by might of the Voice of India.

Arvind Kejriwal's goal is not in question; if his means to the goal weren't a problem to you before, it shouldn't bother you now. The vigilantes among his comical assembly of politicians have much to learn, but having brought a party into power, it makes sense to give them some time. Perhaps an insensitive haasya-kavi and a reckless Law Minister will go some way in eliminating corruption: two weeks is too small a period to develop opinions about anybody!

Most importantly, let us realize why we praise or criticize anybody. In this market of voices, we develop meaningless opinions in the hope that we get heard.

P.S. Every single person I know wishes for a corruption free India in which they alone can pay a small bribe and get their work done.

vigilantes

The Indian Rapist

NCR's crimes against women have always been on the ascendancy. Everyday, The Times carries a story or two about rape and molestation in some godforsaken corner of the newspaper. But people don't like repetitive stories - they're boring. 'The same rape-thing everyday,' says a disinterested old man passing the newspaper to his son. The young man nods mechanically, switching channels on the television as his elderly mother brings piping hot chai into the drawing room. 'These women must learn not to go out so late in the night. Why can't they stay in groups?' she asks. 'It'll all be better if they begin to dress more modestly. They think they live in America these days!' laughs the old man, sipping his tea.

One more public gang rape later, India is up in arms against what is, after all, routine. Names such as Damini, Nirbhaya and Amanat have been conferred upon the unfortunate girl, who has now been proclaimed a martyr. Songs have been written and letters have been drafted about how brave she was. Inspirational death-bed quotes are abound, each one more touching than its predecessor. But no, ladies and gentlemen; these are all lies. The girl is no martyr. She didn't want to be brave. She was a hapless victim of circumstance and she died a painful, inglorious death in a comatose state. Martyrdom is glorious. Damini's death was nothing but.

'Put the rapists behind bars and punish them,' says the fuming public desperate to exact revenge on the depraved human beings who perpetrated the heinous crime. Several parties have called for stronger laws to make India safe for women, while no one seems to care about expediting the process in place. NCRB reports that 9.4% of all violent crimes in 2011 were rapes, amounting to a whopping 24,206 cases! How many of these cases have been given justice? I doubt the answer will be more than three digits long. When India sends such a message to people - 'Hey, even if you rape that woman, you're probably going to go Scot-free' - then there is no deterrent to these crimes. They will go on and on, no matter how many candle-light marches you hold. Humanity is, in itself, disgustingly depraved and Fear is the only thing which can prevent people from mutilating and annihilating each other.

But Fear is a temporary solution, some people say. Ultimately, there needs to be a stage when people have a changed mindset - when a woman can walk through a dark, secluded alleyway wearing whatever she pleases, and men respect her and leave her alone. Well, this is a noble dream but it hardly seems achievable at this point in time. Many people have blamed the 'patriarchal mindset' for the problems we face today, and they may well have a point. This is ironic - because Patriarchy itself came about in order to protect the women of the house. So, why do people blame the system which is in place to protect them? Or did something go wrong along the way?

The answer to this question is rather simple, readily available in our minds and in the general zeitgeist. One only has to watch a Ilayadhalapathi Vijay movie or a Salman 'Dabangg' Khan flick to see how readily India accepts the objectification of women. But if it ended there, we wouldn't be complaining so much - for in most movies, eve teasing and sexual harassment is almost norm. It adds to comic relief. Some movies go so far as to show how women are finally placated as they are unable to take any more obscene advances from the hero. 'Well, these are mass flicks,' people tell me, defending the their chikni chamelis. 'These are made to run in rural areas. Those farmers are satisfied only by such vulgarity.'

You could give these remarkably stupid defences a second-thought if it wasn't for the 'Cocktail's of Bollywood. Cocktail - featuring Saif, Deepika and Diana: That was targeted at elite Indian audience, correct? Somehow, I remember the ending being about the loose woman who mends her ways and becomes an ideal Bharatiya naari. 'Elite audiences' seem to have the same standards when it comes to distinguishing between a 'loose woman' and a 'good girl'. And this brings me to my point about Patriarchy.

Most cultures in this part of the world are fiercely protective of their women. They feel responsible for them and they will defend the honour of their ladies with their lives. This, after all, comes with the definition of a Patriarchy - where Father is the leader and defender of the household. It is only natural then, that this father has the last and final call regarding the affairs of the women in the house - like the marriage of the daughter etc. So, in the past, marriages were peacefully arranged by elders in society and youngsters didn't have much of a say. But now with love, sex and romance being prerequisites for betrothal, young men want to meet those women who will be conducive to such relationships. In other words, several men search for the aforementioned 'loose women' in order to carry out their passionate love affairs. However, at home it still remains the same. Your sisters and daughters need to remain good girls who can be married off to whomsoever the family decides.

In Arabia, the scene is similar but these men cannot manage their love affairs too easily outside of marriage. The sharia will have them castrated or stoned, or worse - both. So, they have their flings and parties far away from home, with Europeans and Americans, in the bars they swear they won't enter. I would say this is better for society, as the women at home are safer this way. In India, men are confused. They desire their Hollywood-esque love affairs in a society where they would like to keep their women under control.  In such a society, every patch of naked skin on a woman's body flashes brightly as an invitation to rape. Patriarchy, which has become a synonym for 'double-standard', could well be the culprit.

Finally, with so many people pledging to educate their friends and relatives, it is quite possible that we will eventually overcome this hypocritical mindset which will, in turn, lead to a declining number of rape cases in the country. Even if the numbers don't decline, at least a change of mindset will ensure that investigations are carried out without calling the woman the culprit. But this will take time. A lot of time. Until then, we need  deterrents. For every crime, there must be punishment.

The Gandhi Consequence

"Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the father of our nation, through his selfless struggle against all odds, single-handedly brought us deliverance from over two hundred years of British oppression. Using only truth and ahimsa as his weapons, he overthrew the mighty colonial power, triggering a series of successful peaceful freedom struggles across the globe."

These were the words that were fed to us by Social Studies textbooks back in our middle-school days. Year after year, History lessons taught us one thing - MK Gandhi was the greatest man that ever lived, and without him we'd still be serving our British sahibs. Those were times when most of us looked up at the man in the white dhoti with awe and veneration; times when we were told stories about how a man who was once kicked out of a train in South Africa for not being white went on to liberate 500 million Indians and Pakistanis.

But since then, times have changed and opinions have changed. We cried foul as we challenged the lies we were being fed slowly and continuously by the Indian Government! Since then we've watched movies about Bhagat Singh and the revolutionary war against the British which drew no sympathy whatsoever from Mohandas Karamchand, leading to the martyrdom of a bunch of young revolutionaries. We've read articles about Nehru-Gandhi conspiracy theories and about how Gandhi's favouritsm for Nehru lost us Pakistan. My Experiments With Truth, which was once seen as a masterpiece still remains one, but one that indicts Gandhi for many of his crimes and kinky indulgences. Basically, much of urban India has formed an anti-Gandhi club and with good reason.

But today's post isn't about Gandhi-bashing which has become all too common these days, but about how Gandhi's actions, however selfish, have helped shaped this country and make it the India we know today. I maintain that our freedom in 1947 was largely due to the political scenario post-World War II and not plainly because a few thousand people showed the other cheek having been slapped once already. I refuse to believe that a person who wants to hit you will stop hitting you and start considering you his role-model once you start accepting his beatings. However, Gandhi was a genius for having realized the power of people in numbers, in an age when people believed that there is no power without weapons.

I am certain that our freedom would have been achieved faster and more effectively had we fought the British with petrol bombs and country pistols, like Bhagat Singh and co believed. But I shudder to imagine what would have happened to a nation as diverse as ours had we won our freedom 'with blood' as so many people believe we should have! We are, after all, what our history has shaped us to be and violence only begets violence.

There would be no place for the Anna Hazares of this country had we bombed our way into independence. It was perhaps the first and most important example of a peaceful non-cooperation movement which ended successfully, without which none of us would have faith in peaceful methods of change. Some of us are saying that the hunger strikes held by Team Anna must be outlawed as it holds the Government to ransom, but imagine if these protests got violent! - We'd end up like Syria with free-peoples' armies fighting the national army and thousands dying in the process. The Syrian revolt itself began as a protest against corruption, after all!

On the other hand, there could arise a situation where the protesters remain peaceful while the Government uses brute force and military tanks to crush the rebellion and kill millions in the process, like in Tiananmen (1989). Both these scenarios are highly unlikely in India because of the large disincentive for the party that takes up the violent route. We, as a people, will not accept unprovoked violence, no matter how just the cause. And that's why I believe we're lucky to have lost Pakistan in 1947. Thank you, MKG and Nehru, for being that selfish.

The important thing we have learnt subconsciously is to fight for our rights and not for revenge. We may have a pathetic Police and an even more abysmal justice system, which keeps the Kasabs of this world alive for decades, but we believe in the system. We will crib and we will demonstrate to bring about change, but Indians don't take the law into their own hands.

And that is why we have never had a civil war in our colourful 65 year history. In a country of 1.2 billion people with half a dozen major religions, two dozen languages and several different ethnic groups, it is truly a miracle that we've come out of a state of absolute chaos without too many scratches. And if the Indian had taken up the gun at the turn of the 19th century, scratches are all that we'd have got!

So, dear MKG, while I do not much appreciate the fact that you slept with a different naked virgin every night for whatever twisted desire of yours, I thank you for having our people drop their weapons and stand for their rights. Without the World War, your methods might not have been so successful, but in hindsight, it all seems right.