Blame the rulers, not democracy

S.Gurumurthy ExpressBuzz 04 December 2008

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Blame+the+rulers,+not+democracy&artid=DE7pxo0am2U=&SectionID=d16Fdk4iJhE=&MainSectionID=d16Fdk4iJhE=&SectionName=aVlZZy44Xq0bJKAA84nwcg==&SEO=Vande,%20Mataram,%20politicians,%20rulers,%20opposition,

A fall out of the Jihadi attack on Mumbai is huge outrage. While this anger is understandable given the way the present ruling politicians have handled the issue of national security, what is intriguing is the hate campaign is directed against the politicians as a whole and as a class. Most English TV channels are ceaselessly and systematically feeding this hate. It is 'Page Three' personalities particularly in Mumbai who star in this campaign. Most Indians would not even know what 'Page Three' personalities means. They are the partying type, mostly found in restaurants in Five Star hotels. They are so called because, a decade earlier, their pictures and their parties used to appear in page three of newspapers. Now they are all over the media, with most media sometimes celebrating them with the front page positions.

When in the past several terror attacks had taken place and hundreds of people had died, there was public outcry against terror. But the media never ceaselessly telecast or print their outrage like they do now. What is the difference this time? This time around Page Three celebrities are the protestors. This class had never imagined that terror would ever touch them. In the past they had seen the terror blowing the commuters by train and bus to pieces, tearing down ordinary men and women in crowded vegetable and general markets. Most in this class do not travel by trains or buses nor go to crowded markets. Now the abode of this class, the Star hotels, is hit, it is terribly angry. How is this class positioned in our polity? It talks about democracy but does not vote. It talks against corruption, but would not fight it. It talks of high values but follows a lifestyle that hardly support those values. Now they are the ones anchoring the national debate on the right and wrong of politicians. Examine how dangerous this is.

Politicians are the products of elections. And elections do not yield quality leadership. For example, a Ramakrishna Paramahamsa could not have found a Vivekananda in a Narendra through ballots from his co-disciples. It cannot be that democracy is good, but elections are bad, as there can be no democracy without elections. Elected politicians are the backbone of democracy. If they manipulate the people, it is the duty of the elite to educate the people to be vigilant. How many Page Three characters have taken to educating the people to make right choices? So their anger against politicians is because their undisturbed fun and frolic have been disturbed. If they feel so outraged now what where they doing when trains after trains and market after markets were being targeted by terrorists in which the ordinary people were maimed and killed?

Now come to their targets, the politicians. Politicians are the easiest target of the elite. But in this country they are the only ones who are open to scrutiny – as to what they say or do. No one can scrutinize, say, the judges. The scrutinizer will go to jail. No one in his senses can talk against the media. Only politicians are easy subjects for cartoon or hate. But this time around, the campaign that is on after the Mumbai terror strike is not just the eruption of pent up apathy towards the politicians. It is something more. The Mumbai terror has exposed the ruling parties in the centre and at the state, like no other act of terror has done. The reason is self-evident. It has touched the very class, the chatteratti, that is the backbone of the secular class. The anger of this class cannot be directed against the secular political groups that run the country today as that would shift balance of advantage to the un-secular opposition. So the present rulers need to be protected. Result, the anger is intentionally directed against the political class as a whole.

Thus, this campaign against the political class as a whole conceals the real intent behind it, namely to protect the secular governments at the centre and at the state which had had all intelligence input about the sea side terror attack that was coming on Mumbai and on Mumbai hotels specifically, but did nothing to act on them, whatever the reason for their inaction. The present government at the centre and in Maharashtra have been so callous about national security that over 1000 innocent persons have been killed in Mumbai by terror strikes in the year 2008 alone! Seeing the entire political class as hate objects protects the ruling parties against public retribution. The present rulers had repealed the anti-terror law in India when the whole democratic world was enacting such laws against terrorism. The terror attacks multiplied in numbers under the rule of the present government. So blaming the entire political spectrum bails out the culprits ruling India today. The Page Three icons and the media seem to be on this joint enterprise to wash off the sins of the ruling party and its leadership by targeting the political class as a whole.

Take this process to its logical conclusion. The hate against the ruling parties is being universalized thus as anger against the entire political class. Compare this anger against the politicians with how the ordinary people raised patriotic slogans, 'Vande Mataram' and 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' when the NSG and Army commandos successfully vanquished the terrorists and again when the funeral of the slain ATS, NSG and Army fighters was taking place. Admiration for the army coupled with hate for political class as a whole is dangerous to democracy. In a democracy, it is necessary to let the public anger correct the ruling party that is at fault. The rulers must pay for their fault. They should not be allowed to escape punishment for their mistakes by joining the crowd of hated politicians. There is a lesson for the opposition also; that is if they come to power, they would be treated no differently. Imagine the political class is hated, and the army is admired, the legitimacy will be with the army, not with the political leadership. This is what made the army in Pakistan ambitious to become, and it became, the ruler. Yet, now, the Pakistan army is as hated as politicians in that country. So generating hate against the political class as a whole risks dangerous consequences. The media should not help dowse the public anger against the rulers at fault. That is what democracy is all about. The mistakes of the ruling party becomes the talking point for the opposition. This forces power to shift between the ruling and opposition parties.

So the media should educate the people to punish the rulers at fault, not bail them out by blaming all of the political class, as that undermine the political class as a whole, for ever. It should not allow the rulers to escape punishment. Is any one listening?