Vitiated political atmosphere

THE timing of the letter written by 65 retired bureaucrats could not have been more apt. A day after they bemoaned the “rising authoritarianism and majoritarianism”, vigilantes in Rajasthan waylaid Tamil Nadu government staff on a legitimate cow-breeding mission. The caution sounded by the retired officials needs to be heeded as it is based on an intimate knowledge of the country’s social fabric and the various concessions and compromises required by the majoritarian communities to hold it together. Two months earlier, officers of the 1968 batch of the Indian Administrative Service had written to the Rajasthan Chief Minister about the day-light lynching of Pehlu Khan, a cattle trader on as lawful a mission as the Tamil Nadu government employees. Separately, the President of India and the Vice-President have raised the flag against the government-acquiesced rise of intolerance and the culture of impunity.  

There is something amiss if the country’s President and Vice-President, acknowledged for their intellectual breadth, are joined by former bureaucrats to point out the dangers of “growing hyper-nationalism that reduces any critique to a binary: if you are not with the government, you are anti-national.”  The BJP’s resounding success with the cow-Ramzan-kabristan formula in Uttar Pradesh may have something to do with the emboldened mood among vigilantes and hyper nationalists. A Cabinet Minister’s assurance that the government does not intend altering the food habits is a provisional retreat due to the beef politics’ diminished appeal outside the Hindi heartland. But supporters of the Modi government remain enamoured by the sure-fire formula of appealing to latent insecurities, fanning prejudices and cultivating hostility.

But there is much more that is amiss in the nation — direct and indirect intimidation of the media, the Army Chief’s sermons that brook no critique, selective crackdowns and stifling of dissent in universities and on the Internet. The essence in the appeal of these wise veterans is simple: they want the full application of the values of objectivity and impartiality in governance. It is for the rulers to recognise that diversity, debate and dissent rejuvenate a nation’s sinews. Prejudice and impunity usually have the opposite effect.