Indian Democracy? Mehul Kamdar

Indian Democracy?

Mehul Kamdar

Published on February 13, 2007

There is a storm brewing in India over the news about the tapping of opposition politiciansï¿½ phones. First, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singhï¿½s phone was proven to be tapped and now Tamilnadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayaram has alleged that her phone has been tapped as well. In a country that touts itself as the worldï¿½s largest democracy, there is evidence that this is little more than sales talk by Indian politicians, of a fraud on more than a billion Indians by their own government. It is not clear, at the moment, whether this storm would die down or lead to a long term change in how the government works in India. It would be wise to be skeptical about what is happening and about any possible future re-examination of the current Big-Brotherly state of affairs in the Indian government and itï¿½s supporters in the Indian media.

Some years ago, Indian newspapers conclusively proved that every letter that came into India from outside the country was opened and read by Indian intelligence. There was no public outcry in India at the time and nothing really happened about the policy which probably continues to this day. The newspapers that talked about it obviously found more sales-worthy stories and moved on. Earlier, the Indian Express had found its phone and fax lines disconnected during the early days of the Bofors expose. And yet, the same Indian Express, some years later, when it was firmly a BJP mouthpiece, attacked author Arundhati Roy when she challenged Indiaï¿½s nuclear policy and wrote to say that the government was welcome to investigate her income and whatever else it wanted to look at, the reference being to the Indian governmentï¿½s vindictive ways. The Express found it convenient to forget its own loud protestations of just a few years earlier as it worked as a propaganda mouthpiece for the BJP led government at the time.

And the Express is not the only hypocritical Indian newspaper. ï¿½The Hinduï¿½ which supported the Emergency throughout and then quietly apologized for this in a short paragraph after Indira Gandhiï¿½s defeat at the hands of the Janata Party, screamed loudly when the Jayalalitha government sent policemen into its offices to arrest a reporter whom the government had decided had been too highly critical to be permitted to remain free. Martin Niemollerï¿½s immortal saying about the Holocaust

"First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out;

Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out;

Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out.

And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."

was not something that either newspaper really cared to remember.

Considering the hypocrisy that is part and parcel of Indiaï¿½s government and its press, it is possible that nothing will happen in the long term on either the wire tapping incidents or on the spying on Indian citizensï¿½ personal mail. Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav whose home state Bihar recently relegated his party to the dustbin actually taunted Amar Singh asking the government to make the records of his phone taps public. Forget a Big Brotherly attitude - this was typical of the thuggishness that the Indian government regularly practices not just against common citizens but also against politicians in the opposition. The much touted ï¿½largest democracyï¿½ in the world seems to look, more and more often like a farce.

India is a country where laws dictate everything from the amount of ï¿½permissibleï¿½ rat droppings in food sold to the public through the government owned ï¿½fair price shopsï¿½ to how many people may gather together in a public place at a time. Police patrols in states like Tamilnadu are known to harass motorcyclists and scooter riders after 10:00 at night though no car is ever stopped - some are definitely more equal than others in this democracy by Orwell. And, while there are laws and conventions restricting the rights of the individual Indian coming into force almost everyday, there has not been any major attempt at curbing the powers of governments or of individual government servants even when they go drastically against all norms of decency or even break the law. Indians get kicked around by almost all government departments that they need to deal with from the motor vehicle licensing authorities through the customs, the passport office and the ration and voter ID distribution centres to the tax authorities. Life for the common Indian is a never ending series of headaches whenever he/she has to deal with Indian officialdom. And yet, you would be told, if you asked, that India is a democracy. The loudest voices in shouting this would be those of the oppressors in the Indian government, the voices of those who do nothing to stop the assault on individuals freedoms in India. They shout these paeans to Indian ï¿½democracyï¿½ while flouting every norm of decency in the worldï¿½s democracies that they would like India to be compared with. It would not be inconceivable, then, for W H Audenï¿½s ï¿½The Unknown Citizenï¿½ to become something that Indiaï¿½s leaders chant at every public forum, believing that it is praise for their system.

Mehul Kamdar from Chicago is currently moderating Mukto-Mona forum. He was the editor of The Modern Rationalist under late M D Gopalakrishnan and associated with various rationalist movements. He can be reached at [email protected]