B L : BSRaghavan :15th October 2012
The TV news channel, Headlines Today, in association with Bloomberg TV, holds an hour-long discussion every Saturday on burning issues, moderated by the iconic Tim Sebastian of BBC’s HardTalk fame, in the series titled The Outsider.
It takes the form of a motion which is voted upon by a large interactive audience after being debated by eminent figures in public life.
I was clean bowled by the daring motion — India is ripe for revolution — brought before the audience on October 13, and the no-holds-barred, no-punches-pulled expression of views marking the proceedings.
The participants in the debate were the former Minister and political gadfly, Mani Shankar Iyer, the former IAS officer-turned social activist, Aruna Roy, who played a monumental role in making the Right to Information a reality, Prof Dipankar Gupta, reputed for his perceptive contributions to raising the quality of public discourse, and Jay Panda, the youthful and public-spirited MP, elected to the Lok Sabha from Kendrapara in Odisha.
Amazingly, all of them unanimously agreed that the people were seething with “searing rage” over their utter helplessness in the face of Himalayan corruption, rampant misgovernance, insufferable arrogance of politicians, the sadistic callousness of administration everywhere and the perversion and subversion of the institutions of democracy itself.
Iyer and Roy were sure that India was heading for a revolution. Iyer thought it could be staved off by the devolution of more powers to panchayati raj institutions.
Aruna Roy felt that the revolution in India might assume forms and characteristics different from what had been seen elsewhere.
‘MILLION MUTINIES’
Gupta and Panda took the position that despite all the problems India faced, things could still be managed within the Constitutional framework. Because of the self-corrective mechanisms and the ameliorative measures taken, and the undoubted progress that the country had made, conditions might not reach the level of desperation leading to a revolution.
But the motion was carried with the 58 per cent of the audience voting in favour.
I thought that, of the four participants, Aruna Roy came through forcefully as one who had her finger on the pulse of the people. She talked of a “million mutinies” already erupting on varying scales in different parts of the country in the form of rasta roko, public protests against lack of basic amenities, agitations against police brutalities and the like.
A revolution was inevitable if these coalesced into a country-wide mass uprising. And then, there would be no stopping it.
The Maoist insurgency itself was an incipient form of revolution, being the mobilisation of the people to resist the sufferings inflicted upon them by those in power.
INSOLENCE
Just as the debate was going on, the print and electronic media all over India were bursting at the seams with news of the shocking exposes regarding Robert Vadra and the Law Minister, Salman Khurshid, and his wife, the menacing of a toll attendant by Porbander (Gandhiji’s birthplace!) MP with his gun for merely asking for his identity and the alleged kidnapping of a Chief Medical Officer by a Minister in UP — all of it made worse by the utterly insulting and contemptuous attitude shown by politicians for the resentment of the people.
Some personal experiences of mine also indicate that the governing class is totally oblivious to the powder keg India is fast becoming, almost as a precursor to an Indian Spring akin to the Arab Spring (which, it must be remembered, started with a small incident of a policewoman misbehaving with a vegetable vendor in the capital of Tunisia).
At two functions of members of the younger generation I asked the boys and girls what their dreams were. At one place, a boy stood up and described the gruesome and gory things he wanted to do to politicians he named. At the other place, a girl said that since elections only led to the exchange of one set of goons and crooks for another, all the voters should, to a person, boycott the next elections and create a Constitutional crisis.
A respectable senior citizen actually told me that the Maoists should target Ministers and bureaucrats, instead of police constables and petty government servants!
Are our politicians aware of the “searing rage” brimming all over the Internet and the media?
One very much doubts, looking at their continuing insolence.
COMMENTS:
from: paulose
Posted on: Oct 14, 2012 at 21:56 IST
(1) Yes, citizens’ concern is the prevalent system. Basic question is whether today’s politicians have a vested interest in continuing it. Without reforming the system our democracy cannot be a true democracy. But would today’s bureaucrat-politician combine allow the revolution to take place? (2) Reality is that a system wherein favours are sought by government officials, and those who are politically well connected, is inbuilt in our society. (3) Corruption, particularly in the lower and middle level bureaucracy, is so rampant in our country that it is possible to get favours from almost any government official for a price. (4) I wonder whether the bureaucracy and all political parties with no exception ever want to change this corrupt system.
from: Narendra M Apte
Posted on: Oct 15, 2012 at 08:59 IST
I enjoy watching Tim sebastian in Indian TV media because the journalists who hog the limelight in all our TV media are so pathetic that the contrast in quality when you watch and hear Tim is striking.Our media is populated by 4 kinds - 1.Shrill brigade majority of whom are women journalists from privileged families.2.The crooked brigade- Ones who will take money or honorariums like Padmashree and do the bidding of the financier 3.Sophisticated stephensian types who see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil,the classical fence sitters.They are boring and so terribly castrated one wonders how they increase their tribe.4.The last category is the intelligent honest types but whose clout is so low that they are dismissed by one and all.The best part of it is the so called "english educated" viewers who have so little understanding on any issue that they can be easily swayed by lowest of low arguments.India is the land of the blind where one eyed is the king
from: shiv
Posted on: Oct 15, 2012 at 09:49 IST
We do need a revolution like the fresh revolution. Storm the parliament
( bastille) . The Mango people should pick up the gun.
( bastille) . The Mango people should pick up the gun.
from: Gautam Majumdar
Posted on: Oct 15, 2012 at 11:46 IST
India is doomed and I would not be surprised at all if India actually breaks up into many countries within next 25-30 years because our institutions, leaders have become hollow from inside.