I see a lot of FB posts against 'politicising' the suicide of
Anita. 'Politicising' does not mean mere shifting of blame on one another for
an issue. It means looking at an issue through the 'prism' of Politics. Every
single problem we face in our lives is either directly or indirectly related to
the kind of 'Politics' we are thrust into. When you try to 'depoliticise' an
issue, i.e peel the 'political' layer off it, during an attempt to solve it,
you immediately begin losing way. You digress, you find yourself astray inside
the dark, meaningless thicket of confusion. As a result, you find false and
temporary solutions which when put into practice, create more and more issues.
This is the reason, why a lot of 'depoliticised' societies i.e,
societies which have lost the ability to interpret contemporary phenomena in
'political' terms, quickly lose all their hard-won rights and privileges and
spiral into lawless ruin. The recent trend of high percentage of Cancer
incidences, the attainment of premature puberty by today's girls, the
increasing number of acid attacks on women, frequent occurrences of farm
suicides, recent emergence of 'extreme' global weather conditions, rising infertility
among men, increased importance attached to box office 'value' of a movie
instead of its artistic equivalent, emergence of Corporate Godmen,
unsustainable levels of traffic jams and urban pollution, neglect of academic
courses in favour of professional education, increased obsession of educated
middle class over gadgets and luxury items, etc. Not one of the aforementioned
issues can be addressed without understanding the current 'political' climate
in India, even though these issues appear to be completely 'apolitical'.
This is why I have been howling from over rooftops for quite a
long time urging people to follow, debate and analyse politics as much as they
indulge in cricket/cinema. People especially the middle classes assume that
there is a well-defined 'division of labour' existing between the government
and the governed. 'It is your duty to govern properly as much as it is mine to
pay taxes'. But actually it doesn't work that way. A sharp 'division of labour'
can apply only to monarchical or dictatorial forms of society. You leave
everything to the ruler in full recognition of the assumption that 'He knows
better', just like you don't interfere when an electrician is fixing your
faulty motor pump.
The ruler taxes 'salt', orders farmers to surrender one-third of
the year's grain to the State, calls for a needless war on a neighboring
country, bans divorce and so on. You unquestioningly abide reposing blind faith
on the infallible logic and supremacy of the ruler. Even if you want to question
him, you cannot do much to make a difference. This mindset made sense during
primitive and medieval days. But have we managed to grow out of it even after
these many of years of democratic rule??
When the government asked us to submit our personal details such
as Iris patterns and fingerprints to them, did we at least once try to question
the logic behind the decision? Or verify the validity of the explanation that
was offered?? Didn't we all take a day's off and queue up like ants for hours
together to surrender our privacy to the authorities? When it was told that the
Biometric system was introduced solely to weed out fake beneficiaries of state
welfare schemes, we blindly believed. Later when the government asked us to
surrender our LPG subsidies to help the poor, some of us complied. Later when
they announced that the subsidies would be removed altogether from next year,
did we bother to ponder over the futility of so much time and effort to set up
the Biometric system?
We remain silent either because we still believe that the
government knows better or because we don't think we can make a difference by
questioning it. The systems of governance have changed from Monarchy to
Imperial Dictatorship to Liberal Democracy. But did our collective mindset keep
pace with these drastic changes?
When, in 1947, we were entrusted with the power to choose our
ruler at the end of every five years, did we realize that it was a privilege
that none of our forefathers enjoyed? How much effort did we put in to make
ourselves worthy of it? Some of us say that today's state of politics is too
obnoxious to follow and too nauseating to keep in touch with. Politics is akin
to bringing your child up. If you stop dealing with your child because he is
too stubborn to change his ways, he will grow even more thick-skinned and
impenetrable to care and advice in the future. And no one but you will have to
carry the blame for allowing a problem-child to grow up into a totally
incorrigible brat. And no one but you will have to bear the brunt of whatever
he does.
Politics is as crucial to man as much as his math, hygiene and
morality to survive in a civilized society. And remember no society can grow as
long as it has a dormant, easy-going middle class. The lower classes, though
they form the majority in any society do not have access to proper and full-fledged
education so as to think and make ideas. The upper classes, the dominant
minority, have always wanted to bend the State in order to fatten at the
expense of the rest of the society. Hence the role of the middle class becomes
crucial in applying their education to understand and analyse contemporary
phenomena, create informed opinion, leverage the modern tools of communication
to propagate their ideas and the bear the torch towards creating a better and
inclusive society.
