On Citizens, Squirrels, Democracy and Peace

2023 is almost over and ‘best of…’ lists and articles about new year’s resolutions are everywhere. The impulse is to comment on the speedy flight of time but what a year this has been and how much more unbearable had it floated by at the pace of childhood summers.

This moment has seemed even more apocalyptic since December 2019’s advent of the COVID-19 virus. The pandemic; the global democratic deficit; pushback on equality; shrinking freedom and rights; obscene, expanding socio-economic inequality; ever-more frequent climate change disasters and shameless, heartless violence and war together make this moment hell on earth. It is easy to believe that we do indeed live in the last era of the yuga cycle that is traditionally characterized by moral turpitude and decline.

I speak, write and teach about citizenship and agency. I tell people that they are citizens. They must take responsibility. They must act in whichever ways they can. In my international relations class, my not-so-secret agenda is global citizenship—be cosmopolitan, care about others, our lives are interconnected.

At the end of 2023, my spirit feels like stale poha—beaten, lifeless and beyond rescue.

How can I preach pro-active citizenship when I myself am at a loss? I do not think anything I do makes a difference. Who reads what I write? (To be fair, that gives me a little room to write more honestly!) There may be other things, more things, bigger things I should do but I cannot escape my day to do them (and the teaching of the Gita stays with me—do your own duty first). The world around me is a political nightmare and I too self-censor because, like many, many others, I have to choose my risks.

Many years ago, I wrote an article about getting through hard political times. But these times feel so much direr.

My own daily constraints contribute to my dispirited despair. I read at random because I cannot sequester myself to read deeply any more. I write all the time but bits and pieces of no consequence—organisational content, social media posts, administrative email, class materials—not even many personal letters any more. I cannot write academically, faking a neutral standpoint, nor journalistically, as if I do not take the mess in the world personally. Writing in a blog and not writing are the same. Who reads? And who reads older women (of colour) writing from peripheral locations anyway? (Maybe some do, but since we will never be worthy of a citation or a share, we will never find out!) Moreover, it turns out that because I am not a great fundraiser, I am not very good at social sector work and in these years, will preside over the slow demise of something I birthed and nurtured.

I am so deeply grateful for teaching. It seems to be the one somewhat useful public sphere work I can still do.

But is that all? Is that all, the citizenship preacher in me despairs?

I wanted to write this because writing is the rat-mining of my brain. I can feel my way to the openings and possibilities I do not know exist. In that spirit, I make myself a list to explore. (Will any of this matter? I cannot tell. But if I do not try, I will have failed in my duty to myself and to the world around.)

So, what am I capable of doing?

·         I can learn. I can read more, more, more—widely and deeply—and process that information in useful ways.

·         I can communicate; this may be my core skill. I can write—it’s not my job to think about who will read—to make some of what I learn accessible to others. I can explore the new media and tools for communication that are out there and learn to use them for the common good. (No, no, not another podcast!)

·         I can teach, with all my heart. Teaching usefully brings together my ability to learn and my ability to communicate and it enables others to realise their own citizenship. I am now privileged to teach in formal classrooms but there are lots of other places where teaching and learning happen as well, including everyday conversations.

·         I can work with, join, amplify or support other individuals, organisations or networks working for change. I am not alone and it is important to remember that.

·         I can find, clear, create and hold space for others to talk, to share and to connect with each other.

I read that in 2024, half the world will go to the polls to elect their governments. Going by the last few years, we cannot take for granted that either  the process or the outcome will be democratic or good for democracy. We cannot take for granted any more that most people support ideals like “social justice” or “gender equality” or “unity in diversity”—and as I write this, the words seem ridiculously outdated. We cannot assume that today’s wars, conflicts or genocides will stop because those who have the power do not have the will to stop them and those who would stop them (like me) have neither power nor voice.

As this year ends, I feel like I am living a nightmare. I am being chased and running hard but never moving. Exam questions are being distributed but I have forgotten the exam or forgotten how to write. I need the toilet but there are none or there are no walls around the commode. I am outside, night has fallen, public transport has vanished and only the ghouls, dead and alive, remain, and I cannot walk home fast enough. My hands hold a long-awaited letter whose text disappears as I read and I cannot read past the salutation sentences. I am trapped, desperate, helpless, angry and grieving more than I thought possible.

As my country sets aside life-and-death concerns to debate RSVPs to a temple’s consecration, I take heart from a story in that very deity’s life. I can be the squirrel who diligently, tirelessly ferries one pebble at a time to construct a sea-bridge. My lifetime’s little efforts may not matter in themselves but my failure to contribute them will matter to me. More than a resolution for 2024, this is an imperative.  

#nosgbv Sounds of Silence

"And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share...
No one dare
disturb the sounds of silence."

I have been listening to this Simon and Garfunkel classic most of my life. But yesterday, as I listened during my evening walk, ahead of writing about the impossibility of speaking up about everything that happens, I was struck by how apt it was. "No one dare disturb the sounds of silence."

I too have been reading about the controversy over Padmavati, and have retweeted a couple of articles and posts I agree with, but have not said anything. Of course, I have views on this but I have not aired them, for many reasons. Today, I am wondering if they are reasons or excuses, and I have to conclude that maybe they are both.

You wake up in the morning and turn on any news source or pick up an old-fashioned newspaper, and there is a barrage of information that you can barely process. If you let one grab your attention and start to respond, you do little else in the day. And I tell myself, I run an organisation that works on gender violence awareness day in and out. Surely, my time is best spent doing my work. A hundred philosophical aphorisms support my view from Voltaire's 'Il faut cultiver son jardin' to a refrain of many Tamil spiritual teachers, 'Chumma iru.'

But someone threatens to behead a woman and I have nothing to say.... how do we reach that point?

It's not just the threat to an actress for doing her job. It is that entire flood of news, each item of which is devastating to someone's life and symptomatic of horrible, inhumane traits deeply embedded in our society. Like the incident my mother read about yesterday, where a five year old boy followed a girl of his age to the bathroom, forcibly pulled down her underwear and raped her by inserting a pencil up her vagina. What is the reaction you can have to something like that? My first thought is that he is learning this from the adults around him. Violent abuse is a widespread habit and normalized in many households. Who is doing this to whom within his line of vision?

And just where do you begin to fix such a horrible world?

Decades of hard work by the women's movement and the exigencies of filling up 24/7 news have brought us to a point when in a day, we hear not about one or two or even three incidents like this but several and then one or two are chosen for their dramatic values and replayed to us over and over. We tune out in order to function.

The result is that we normalize cruelty and inhumane behaviour over time. For instance, when Gauri Lankesh was killed, we had actually created enough room for people to say, "But you know these were her views." The point surely was, no matter what her views and your disagreement with them, it was wrong to kill or hurt her. But we have missed that point completely.

With Padmavati, we are debating historicity and freedom of expression and all of these are very important, but the bottomline is surely: since when have we come to accept violence as the normal language of disagreement between people? Since when is it normal for us to be distracted by relative trivia (was she real or not?) and governments to remain silent about physical threats? And then, if the government was to use my own logic, then it could arguably say, "If I took a position on everything that happened, who would introduce demonetisation or collect your garbage?"

When do we speak and when do we let something go? This is a really hard decision. This blogpost is not about my sharing an epiphany on this question but simply working my way through it by writing.

First of all, as I said, it is hard to react to everything that happens--one does not know everything that happens, one cannot be in responsive/reactive mode all the time, one wants to think things through... that said, when do I decide that it is time to say something? When does an issue feel critical enough that it is important for me to speak?

Second, do I have something constructive to add? Usually, no, and that is one reason I stay silent. My tweet or my blogspot would add nothing that is not already being said. On some issues, I stay out all through. On others, I voice my support by signing a petition that makes sense to me. On a few others, I say something by placing it in a broader context, historical or comparative, which is what I am trained to do. But then, in the face of escalating violence, is being selective important or should one just push back all the time?

I don't know much about most things that happen. I know a little but "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," as many school autographs reminded me. Should I wait to learn, should I leave it to experts to lead or should I say, at this moment, it is the heft that counts--all hands to the deck, all voices into the chorus that must push back this silence.

Finally, we are quiet because we don't think it will make a difference what we say. This is the silence that breaks my heart. Where do we go from here? We abdicate our right to protest because we don't think it makes a difference. Governments--this one, any one--are not going to pay us any attention. We are schizophrenic about buying into everything the government tells us but not trusting that it will pay us any attention. Why are we investing so much in a government that we cannot hold to account? My mind says to me now, "Don't go down that road today. Don't digress." Yes, but it is also part of the problem, no? Citizens are quiet when citizens are helpless and when citizens secretly agree. I don't know which one scares me more.

There is the silence of the hive or of ants as they go about their work. And there is the silence of those that will not speak because they are in denial. Which one is mine? I am realising I have to ask this question every single moment of the day if my own silence is not to be read as tacit consent.

I genuinely don't know.


Postscript (added 25.11.17)

The best comments on the Padmavati question have come from this cartoonist:

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/932823465366732800
https://twitter.com/ShashiTharoor/status/825412746963333120

Reflections from Dhauli, July 2017

A Rock-Face Mirror to Indian Politics: Reflections from Dhauli

You would think that a medium-sized rock-face that can only carry so much text would evoke a reaction that is finite. Wrong. On my third visit to Dhauli, the location of a rock edict promulgated by Asoka, I was again struck by its relevance to our time and this time, it was the text on the Archaeological Survey of India’s information board that had me thinking. They summarise the First Special Rock Edict thus: “Addressing the Mahamatras of Samapa, Asoka proclaims that all his subjects are just like his own children and he wishes their welfare and happiness both in this world and the other as he desires for his own children. He orders his officials to be free from anger and hurry so that no body will be punished without trial.”

The last sentence stays with me.

The drama inherent in the story of Asoka’s renunciation of war is irresistible. It captures the imagination the first time you hear it and stirs your soul when you think of the enormity of the epiphany. You forget the years of terrible, often fratricidal violence that preceded the epiphany, and Asoka’s change of heart seems to fill yours with forgetfulness and forgiveness both. You stand at the top of the Dhauli rock and think, “This was the field, this was the river of blood and that was a moment the world should be proud of.” Not quite the same field or stream, but it is hard not to be humbled by the imagined memory of that moment.

The times we inhabit are surely what the Chinese point to in their curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Bad news is everywhere—war, oppression, discrimination, cupidity and stupidity. In such times, the story of Asoka’s epiphany lights a candle of hope. Dare we dream of just such a change of heart in our times?

This time, my third visit, I remember that the drama of the epiphany is captured by another edict (the 13th Major Rock Edict) that is found at locations outside Kalinga—the king’s transformation stopping short of telling the conquered people that he felt bad about conquering them—but this line reminds me of certain qualities of governance which we have prized in other times: “He orders his officials to be free from anger and hurry so that no body will be punished without trial.” Vindictiveness is not acceptable, nor is acting in such haste that the person at the receiving end is defenceless.

I read this in the age of an Aadhaar expansion that feels like the death-grip of a python, in the aftermath of a demonetisation that seems to have been characterised by prioritising speed over preparation and in the long-time coming but no clearer for it adoption of the Goods and Services Tax. In an age where governments—across parties—regard people as impediments and dissent as disloyalty, it is the coercive potential of instruments they create to regulate our activities that we must consider more than any transformative potential governments claim. We will lose our privacy and personal security to Aadhaar and I can no longer remember what benefits we are supposed to receive from it. Though WhatsApp polemic dismisses it decisively, real world, ground-level reports are that people did suffer greatly as a result of demonetisation. And GST seems to have created several layers of compliance—where compliance is potentially and in fact, a lever for control.  Haste is disguised as efficiency and the instruments for many a future vendetta lie embedded in these policies. This is history; this is how the state operates.

What we know from Kautilya’s Arthasastra and from Megasthenes’ Indika about Maurya administration tell us about the importance given to two-way communication between the government and local communities. Officials at different levels were required to regularly tour and report back to their supervisors in a chain that ended in the Emperor’s chamber. The first Separate Rock Edict at Dhauli states, “This edict is to he proclaimed on the eighth day of the star Tisya, and at intervals between the Tisya-days it is to be read aloud, even to a single person.” The 14^th Major Rock Edict states that the edicts are to be found all over the empire in longer or abridged formats so that people may learn about and conform to them.

To be fair, our government believes in talking to the people—but when the feedback loop is usually left incomplete, either in the design or by not listening, it is not really communication, is it? And this is the question I now have about Asoka’s empire too. So he promulgated these messages and had them carved everywhere, and we learn from other sources that in his time, administrative structures provided for a feedback loop, but did he listen? Did any of the other idealised kings of Indian history listen to anyone who could not insistently ring the bell before their palace and demand justice? Rama acted on popular opinion that he had been wrong to accept Sita after her abduction by Ravana, but did he not act in haste? Did he ask Sita to share with the public her experience of abduction and life as a hostage? Did he consider alternative actions? We know Asoka’s ‘mann ki baat’ but did he know what was in the hearts of his people? We are so impressed by his renunciation of war that we do not stop to ask; everything else he did must also be ideal. In an age where we have both the Right to Information and the means to learn for ourselves, are we asking enough questions of our own governments, persistently enough?

Our credulity is apparently age-old, as we like to claim about everything else—culture, democracy, tolerance. I write these words of doubt, not to detract from Asoka’s moment, but to remind myself that it is one thing to give the benefit of the doubt to a distant king more than two millennia removed from my life and another thing to forsake the right to ask questions in our moment. We all need faith and magic, and as a peace activist, I am unwilling to lose the hope Asoka’s epiphany holds out to me—I need to believe changes of heart are possible. I need to believe in the power of love, to use Kenneth Boulding’s words. I need to be able to hope that those who have an ‘accidents happen’ perspective on communal violence, state-sanctioned coercion or militarisation, will someday see things differently—but I cannot afford to grant them anticipatory forgiveness. If the easiest way to raise questions about today is to raise them in the context of a 2000 year old edict, so be it.

Usually associated with a realist, pragmatic, ruler-centred politics, Kautilya’s Arthasastra recognises that the people will and have the right to rebel when their rulers are greedy or unjust. Rulers should guard against rebellion first and foremost by remaining righteous and of course, concerned with the security of the state, the text suggests measures for countering rebellion and treachery but it does not equate the two. But the beginnings of disaffection can only be understood by those who pay attention and want to learn, and disaffection festers. If you suppress or ignore it, it does not go away.

In Indira Gandhi’s centenary year, we are reading a great deal about the Emergency and it is instructive to remember that the road to that hell was also paved with good intentions. Mrs. Gandhi had a closed circle of counselors and she completely misread public opinion, so that the outcome of the 1977 election came as a shock to her. Like Asoka’s edicts and the Prime Minister’s ‘Mann ki baat’ episode recordings, the mission of the 20 Point and 5 Point Programme were also laid out on street corners and in advertisements. In the interest of “order,” censorship silenced those who would have asked questions. “All men are my children,” every government tells us—this implies they know what is good for us and we should trust them—but the citizens of a democracy are not children, and anyone who spends time around children know they start out instinctively curious, egalitarian, fair and open. In a democracy, governments should consult and debate with citizens and citizens should pay attention, be informed, question and communicate with the government. Government exists to serve the public interest and this means, all kinds of people. This is the message that Asoka’s edicts also convey repeatedly: That Asoka, seeks the welfare and love of the people; that officials should behave respectfully towards them and that there should be both the perception and reality of fair-play. We are credulous about Asoka because these are values we today hold dear but these very values require us to be sceptical—our Constitution has given us all speaking parts in the unfolding drama of Indian democracy. The success of this play depends also on how we play our roles—with preparation, with courage, with faith in our values but doubt about everything else! 

A citizenship deficit

Published here on November 1, 2013.

In a classic but much-criticised 1968 book, the political scientist Samuel Huntington put forward a model to explain “instability,” a problem American scholars and policy-makers then worried about a great deal. With a better quality of life, people come to have expectations for delivery and access that governments cannot meet. The political mobilization—protests and rallies, for instance—that follows creates instability. The great worry in the 1960s was that this instability would lead to the spread of communism. We have other anxieties today but the idea of government falling short continues to concern us.

We live in an age where every way of thinking has developed a crust of science envy and every sphere of action is pressurised into management envy. We borrow words and frames from both to describe our lives and sometimes they are pithy enough that we instinctively understand what they mean. Take the deficit. We have gone from using the term in the context of budgets and inflation, to talking about trust deficits, democracy deficits and governance deficits. In all instances, the deficit describes a shortfall in relation to some standard or some expectation. How do you move from the frame to the fix in matters social and political?

Expectations are inherently problematic: they arise in my head but pertain to some action that you are supposed to take. Given that my ability to make you act effectively is limited, the likelihood of realising expectations is improved by imagining ways for us to work together. Taking responsibility repairs deficits better than cataloguing the areas of shortfall or assigning blame. Not for nothing do we say, “When you point a finger at someone, three fingers point back at you.” So when we talk about political shortfalls like trust deficits, democracy deficits and governance deficits, what is the underlying citizenship deficit? This, to my mind, is of greater interest and utility. The Constitution of India points to this with its list of ‘Fundamental Duties,’ underscoring its nature as a compact between state and citizens.

Yes, India’s infrastructure is notional in places; too many of us still live in squalor and insecurity; our freedoms feel fragile; basic needs are still a daily struggle—water, food, schooling, health; and of course, corruption is everywhere. What’s the fix? What can I do, as a citizen?

In the information age, not being aware is either a choice or a lifestyle consequence. If anything, what makes it hard for us to stay in touch is “too much information” rather than too little information. Overwhelmed, we opt out. A better citizenship choice is to stay informed selectively—I know at least what is going on in my neighbourhood, I stay informed about policies in my industry, I keep in touch with one area of policy that is important to me. If I choose to tune out completely, then I should not tune in just to complain.

What are my rights and what are the protections that the law affords me? It is important to find this out, and all too often, we skip this step. We outrage and demand, but our sense of entitlement is not always aligned with reality. For instance, it is in the aftermath of last December’s gang-rape, that many first learned about the many laws India has relating to different kinds of violence against women. We really should know. Legal literacy is an important element of citizenship, and primary responsibility for this lies with schools, colleges and civil society organizations. But in the age of the Internet, it is also possible to teach yourself. Laws, both as bare acts and FAQs and other accessible formats, are readily accessible.

One might postulate that there is an inversely proportionate relationship between the tendency to pontificate on politics and policy and the willingness to go out and vote. That’s what voter turn-out statistics suggest—the “educated” urban middle class cares enough to complain, but not enough to go out and vote. And voting is the citizenship equivalent of Facebook ‘likes’—a minimalistic-to-the-point-of-passive way of saying, “I was here, I saw this, wanted you to know.” Yes, voter registration and getting an election ID are still painful processes, names remain missing from voting day lists, booths get captured, and so on—but getting all this right cannot be a prerequisite for participation. In fact, as more people show an interest in using the process, the pressure to fix and rationalise procedures increases. And if voting feels like so much work, how much harder must it be to get in the fray and contest elections? Perhaps we should not revile politicians so; they choose to do something much harder than the voting we are too lazy to bother with. 

Public engagement can begin with becoming an active member of your residential housing society, even by just paying your society dues regularly and throwing garbage where it should be thrown. One might debate the specifics of taxation schedules and one might contest the use of public revenue, but the reality is that unless all of us chip in, there will not be enough resources in the public pool to do anyone any good. And while private companies may build and maintain shinier airports, governments also do unglamorous things like fumigate mosquito-breeding grounds and change bulbs in street-lights—things that neither bring great profit nor particular brand value. Who will pay for those, if we don’t? Tax evasion, bending traffic rules, illegal construction in our homes, siphoning off water and electricity—compliance is necessary for good governance. Compliance is our part of the deal we make with government; the terms are negotiable, but compliance is not.

But for those who hanker to do more, there are a million ways to get involved. Travelling through a very young United States of America in 1831-32, Alexis de Tocqueville was impressed by how Americans volunteered in many community activities that worked towards their collective interest. He was convinced that the roots of American democracy lay therein. Residents’ Welfare Associations, voter drives, drives to clean up and against corruption and post-disaster relief activities are easy entry points for any of us. In addition, many service organizations might be able to use our skills, resources and facilities. You can give a little time to maybe proof-read for an NGO, to create and maintain their website, check their accounts, or help them raise funds. If you are a care-giver, you might donate some time to taking care of people who work in emergency services and occasionally need a little support. So much to do, so much need, so much to give! You can start exactly where you stand.

Civil society organizations and social movements perform very important political functions. One, among these, is to aggregate and make available information and platforms for learning. They create rallying-points for collective action and offer a counter-point to political parties that might be too invested in the systems they claim to want to change. Ultimately though, politics, the policy world, civil society and social movements begin and end with individuals—you and me. We choose engagement and activism over apathy and ignorance, and thereby, make the difference. And when we try to live the ideals we espouse, we deepen change into transformation.

As Alice Walker wrote, “Expect nothing. Live frugally/ On surprise./ Become a stranger/ To need of pity/ Or, if compassion be freely/ Given out/ Take only enough/ Stop short of urge to plead/ Then purge away the need.” Or Iqbal’s words might resonate better: “Khudi ko kar buland itna ki har taqdeer se pehle/ khuda banda se khud poochhe, bata, teri raza kya hai.”

Behind every governance deficit, there lies a citizenship deficit. It’s a simple thing. If I cannot be bothered to stay informed and participate, and if all my ingenuity is spent in getting around the rules I authorise my government to make for our collective welfare, then really, I cannot and should not complain. That goes for you too.

Swarna Rajagopalan is a political scientist by training and runs Prajnya, an NGO mandated to undertake public education as part of its activities.