Debate, discuss with humility

THERE is so much happening in Delhi at present that just reading about it in the morning papers is exhausting. Weddings, lunches and dinners before the weather turns too hot and the annual World Book Fair. The grand preparations for the G20 Summit cannot be forgotten and everywhere you go, there are huge hoardings, freshly-painted kerbs and flower pots to greet the delegates who will carry an impression of India’s progress wide and far. Public and private gardens are bursting with colourful and fragrant blooms — truly, it seems as if we are awakening to these sights after a long, cold night. The isolation of the Covid period is finally over and throwing out the masks an occasion to celebrate.

In contrast is the state of our neighbours and no matter how we may like to gloat at the miserable state of Pakistan, my heart goes out to those hungry women and children who have no money to buy even a kilo of atta. On the other hand, are the impeccably groomed and coiffed men and women of their elite feudal families or the military who live in posh enclaves and whose lives show no signs of any economic distress. How do such people sleep at night? And how have they brought a proud and prosperous country to this sad pass? The answer is simple: by opting to create a theocratic state and using the beliefs and superstitions of a largely illiterate population to blame Allah and fate rather than their political leaders. There is a lesson here for us to learn because we are also in danger of allowing religious bigotry to overtake sane, common sense. At a very interesting book discussion the other day, I realised how we must look to the past in order to understand the present. It is easy to preen our country’s adherence to its Constitution but let us never forget that the Constitution provides us with an ethical framework within which we have to resolve our differences and diversities. Let us also not forget that there will always be strong differences between faiths, beliefs, classes and genders but instead of discussing them openly, if we mouth pieties rather than acknowledging these essential dichotomies, we are merely burying our heads in the sand.

The need for a dialogue and civil conversations has never been more urgently needed. Yet what we see happening in our Parliament and Vidhan Sabhas is a barrage of angry tirades and ugly scenes of our elected representatives holding placards and rushing to the well of the House to scream insults and slogans that do no one, least of all the country, any good. Time was when parliamentary debates were occasions for us to hear stirring speeches that gave us an ethical framework within which we led our normal lives. It is not that we have no great speakers left, but that their voices are seldom heard. Public debate is now a rarity in the halls meant for them to be held in as political leaders have decided that the street and television studios carry their opinions best. As we mark 75 years of Independence, I see civility in speech and public action slowly being choked. At least people of my generation remember the high noon of parliamentary democracy, our young today will only carry memories of gladiatorial slugfests when they reach our age. How will they ever respect the country?

Come now to the state of Punjab and what is happening there. A frightening sense of déjà vu envelops me as I read about the attack on a police station and a radical Sikh leader exhorting his followers to demand a separate state. The party that has an absolute majority and on whom so many hopes were pinned by the simple folk, who believed all their political rhetoric, are helpless as they watch the Chief Minister and the bureaucracy bumble their way through one crisis and another. Just three decades ago, Punjab had managed to control insurgency and revolt by sending in fearless police officers such as Julio Ribeiro and KPS Gill to quell the damage done to law and order. How long will the AAP take to understand that their own ragtag band of politicians — many of whom have no idea of governance or the political maturity — is incompetent? Not that the other major parties are in a better state: the Akalis are so discredited that it will require a complete overhaul for them to become credible representatives of the farmers and villagers who loyally voted them in over the years. The Congress has fragmented completely: their most senior and respected leaders are now in the BJP. And the BJP is unable to understand the pride that Punjabis have in their own worth. The intervening years have seen several other developments that are behind the disillusioned polity: drug abuse, agrarian distress, lack of employment and no hope of an industrial revolution taking place anytime soon. Ironically, the grand investment jamboree was a disaster as the Ajnala incident took away all its oxygen. Talk of bad timing!

To my mind, the way out of this is to hold open discussions between all political parties and accept that no one party has all the answers. The game of oneupmanship must end and a genuine dialogue set up where good suggestions from everywhere are accepted with grace and humility.