At
the stroke of the midday hour, when the world is awake, India will sleep to death
and destruction. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we
step back to old from new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation,
long suppressed, finds utterance. This is probably how the honorable Haryana CM
will paraphrase Pandit Nehru’s Independence day speech to describe yesterday’s
happening. However, the poor soul, bounded by his political compulsions
understandably can’t afford to offend his core constituency. What is more
disturbing is the way in which the people of Haryana came out in support of a
convicted rapist! Nor do we have the comfort to attribute this behavior to the
funding from a rogue neighbor like we do to their unlucky cousins from the
valley. Nor do they have anything to win or loose. Nor can they be dismissed as
a fringe or some anti-social elements with their numbers in thousands. Probably
we need to dig a bit deeper and do some root-cause analysis before we can jump
to conclusions.
While acknowledging that the mob has
mind of its own, the mob also has a minimum common objective. It is this
objective they try to achieve by putting the state to ransom. What makes them
feel that they have any iota of chance to achieve their objective through this
means? The answer is simply that many times they do succeed, which feeds into
this vicious cycle of violence. The compulsions to let them succeed are always
political. The feeble political will power bows to the majoritarian demands
most of the times. It is not long ago when the same people from same state
burnt Murthal demanding reservation. The examples are many and spread
throughout country. The Jallikattu protests is another example of protesters
resorting to violence. While many of us may criticize Gandhiji for his commitment
to non-violence, but it was probably more than a belief he wanted to restrict to
himself. Looking at the state we find ourselves in now, its disheartening to
conclude that he might feel himself to be only partially successful in his
mission. While means are as important as the ends, the reverse is equally true.
A violent protest by a debt ridden farmer demanding waiver cannot be equated to
a mob on a burning spree against conviction of a rapist. The objectives are
important.
With the objective of the mob in
this case being indefensible, it’s probably the time to reflect upon where do
we have reached as a society and how? How did we reach from Swami Vivekananda
to Asaram, from Guru Govind Singh to Baba Ram Rahim? It’s not that we don’t
have virtuous saints today, but these so called Godmen have become the poster
boy of all that is wrong in blind faith. They run their multimillion dollar
empires under the refuge of religion. At the same time we have a huge
uneducated populace, which provides them a fertile ground for this opium of
faith. While we rightly invested on building our industrial capital, we have
significantly defaulted on the side of social capital. The primary education
had to suffer the brunt of resource crunch. The result is that we have few
pockets of highly advanced human capital while rest of the country is still reeling
with the medieval era thinking and dogmas.
Another aspect of this situation
is purely political. In a stroke of pen free India provided universal adult
franchise to all its citizen post independence. The Economic survey discusses
how it has impacted government’s economic policies, a study on its social
aspects will provide more insights. Dr. Ambedkar pointed to perils of imposing
political democracy over a social undemocratic society. His viewpoint may
provide a starting reference for such a case study. Can the right to equality
guaranteed in constitution remove patriarchy with a stroke of ink? Or can right
to life free a person from the prison of his own faith? Probably, the
constitution provides the end goals we may strive for and not the ones we already
attained on 26th January 1950. This will also explain why it took 70
years to ban Triple Talaq, that too with a mere 3:2 verdict. This will also
explain why section 377 of IPC still exists and why a uniform civil code is
still a distant dream. The universal adult franchise deters the government of
the day to take an anti-majoritarian stand point. It explains why the people look
forward to SC when they should ideally make their elected representatives
accountable to their demands. Why cannot the government come with a law banning
Triple Talaq or a law legalizing homosexuality?
This is what exactly Chief
Justice referred to in his judgment on Triple Talaq. In a matter involving
faith, the court should refrain from being an activist court and necessarily
put rationality above faith every time. A top down approach can have little
effect in solving social problems. You cannot impose liberal values over an
uneducated mass of people. The demand should come from the society itself,
reflecting in the political will to legislate. The only long term solution is
investing on the social capital to generate this demand. However it should not
mean that we should let the irrationality of society prevail over individual
rights till we reach this desirable state. The balancing act between a modern
constitution and a society not fully ready will prove a tough task till then. Long
years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall
redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.
