Tryst with Faith

              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 26^th 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.