TRUTH TO TELL by NIRMALYA DEB
Theories of class and civil society have certainly influenced social analysis and political theory but the democratic subject – the civil individual, someone who doesn’t stand to gain from his political affiliations – has always remained a priori in theory with his alienation from the political process scarcely highlighted
In Kolkata auto and taxi drivers are complaining that because some of them choose to keep the neck of the looking glass of the vehicle defiantly craned, traffic police is charging a fine, holding up the vehicles and confiscating licences. They are complaining that these are routine tactics to collect money, police extortion and worse: With the crucial 2016 Assembly elections drawing nigh the ruling party needs funds to finance the huge election machinery necessary to ensure a second victory and the successful annihilation of the Opposition, which for a while beleaguered, didn’t lose the opportunity of extracting political mileage out of the chit fund scams, corruption and political violence in the districts as well as the drastically deteriorating law and order situation in the state.
A one-minute conversation with an auto or taxi driver would convince you that law and order defying drivers can go to any goddamn extent to justify erratic driving, auto and taxi unions providing the political umbrella under which to seek refuge in case of violent transgressions of the law. Now, if this is the scenario then it’s okay if the traffic sergeant hauls the errant over the coals, or if you prefer a less violent metaphor, catches the lunatic driver by the ear for defiantly keeping the neck of the glass craned.
But, on second thoughts (although this shouldn’t justify defying the law), the larger corruption involved in police extortion, and by extension, state extortion, shouldn’t be glossed over. Transport union and trade union people resort to the very basest of tactics to justify wrongs committed and often demand privileges that are not their due, but it is a fact scarcely lost sight of that unionism has long enjoyed political tutelage and politics often descends to the level of ‘goondagiri’ of the kind that drives out corporate honchos from a state with immense investment potential. In a culture where political hooliganism has become the norm, defiant driving, or other small careless misconducts, ought to seem trifling.
More striking is the disillusionment with the political process that this column has had occasion to mention in other contexts, that is a feeling so pervasive and so deeply ingrained across the social divide that it is hard not to be sceptical about democratic functioning as a whole – democracy considered not merely as the functioning of instrumental laws of governance but a way of life lived collectively. If elections are huge money-spinning affairs and money can steer the fortunes of those at the helm and ensure total bureaucratic non-interference, a political party can safely hope to stay afloat – occasional judicial jolts notwithstanding. The man on the street knows leaders buy their way to power, knows elections are freely bought and sold in the neo-liberal market and knows the mafia and police always serve mantris willing to loosen their purse strings with an eye on far greater dividends in store.
This knowledge fuels the sense of disenchantment with democracy, the unmistakable feeling of disillusionment with the lofty principles of equitable Constitutional governance, and mere instrumental readjustments in the functioning of the three pillars of the democratic structure fail to address the more fundamental disaffection with the political process and the sense of disenchantment it generates. It is also very crucial to understand what we mean by the common man – the political subject in a democracy. Theories of class and civil society have certainly influenced social analysis and political theory but the democratic subject – the civil individual, someone who doesn’t stand to gain from his political affiliations – has always remained a priori in theory with his alienation from the political process scarcely highlighted. That politics has been hijacked by hooligans, at least in West Bengal, and civil individuals or the democratic subject can do very little about it is a fact that can’t be wished away. Why is positive democratic mobilization – certainly not the awry ‘pro-democracy’ movement spearheaded by ‘intellectuals’ during the last months of the moth-eaten Left Front regime which, paradoxically, turned against Mamata Banerjee after she assumed the mantle – not building up from the level o f the democratic subject? This is a question we need to pose, understand, and try to resolve politically for which we need, again, the right kind of atmosphere which, at least in West Bengal, is absent at the moment.
But someone could object that the disillusionment referred to doesn’t exist, that people spontaneously participate in the democratic process, by which it is most often meant elections at all levels of governance, participate in rallies and protest marches, and are active locally in resolving disputes and building up political consensus. When it comes to electoral participation, it ought to be pointed out, people’s participation is not active in the sense of organizing elections and choosing leaders, but passive in the sense of playing merely formal roles in a bureaucratic setup. This distinction is vital. Political campaigning and media coverage of elections for the democratic subject are external influences and not consciousness attained by, for instance, grouping together to resolve a local dispute, or fighting for the rights of unorganized labour and women, or conducting political activity in local colleges and youth clubs. A very large segment of the middle class and upper middle class doesn’t attain political consciousness in this direct, active way but is it because politics has been invaded by criminals and the corrupt – the scum of the earth – for which reason it appears repulsive, or is it due to the apathy of well-meaning democratic subjects so keen to pursue objects of self-interest that they are, unfortunately, averse to socialization in all forms including active political participation?
This is a crucial question and by no means easy to answer, but sans participation a sense of belonging to a system, the sense that the system is what we have made it, can never grow. Participation at the micro level – the level of the democratic subject – is necessary for attainment of the kind of consciousness that is socially outward and unselfish. All honest politics is unselfish in this way – a transcendental pursuit of the attainment of harmony in thought and action, which is the supreme purpose of rational life.