With one smooth stroke of
rhetorical fluency Badri Raina
(
Dec 19th,
Open Page/Isn't Dissent...),
with a little help from
Voltaire, dismissed all the profundity of
Arundhati Roy's
anarchist statements by 'allowing' her the right to
disagree with the official view of Indian state on the issue of
Kashmir.
Like Arundhati Roy, the author's
critique is unique only to the extent of articulation - and if it is
novelty of articulation that counts as opinion these days, then I invite
the reader to ponder upon a few
inconsistencies and contradictions I
found within the article.
Beginning with the title - I do
not know what the inclinations of the author are on the ideological
compass of the political landscape but even the
moderately informed
thinker will have a hard time
digesting the fact that dissent is (being
proposed as) the essence of democracy. Any dissent, I believe, pervasive
enough to become the essence of any
political ideology (not just
democracy) will only dissolve that ideology - and the
political
framework it supports - into an order-less, hopeless mess. Dare I also
mention, that for it to be a democracy in the first place, some people
must
"agree" with each other. Dissent can not be the basis for any kind
of
social contract except a mutually endorsed anarchy. Therefore,
dissent is not the essence of democracy.
The same
contradiction also
resonates with the last paragraph where the author tries to point
towards the
First Amendment of the American Constitution as a possible
solution for a more liberal inclusion of dissenting voices into the
public consciousness. The author seems to forget, that in America too,
the
freedom of speech isn't absolute. The doctrine of
"Clear and present
danger" continues to protect the constitution and state but since they
are the world's oldest democracy, their tolerance for radical speech is
obviously higher than ours and the two relative values can't really be
compared.
It is true that dissent is the
humble acknowledgment that every decision can become an object of
revision, but what is perhaps more true is that dissent for the sake of
dissent will never allow us to find out when it is the right time to
revise our basic decisions such as the decision to constitute ourselves
as a democracy. Whether the ideals enshrined in the constitution are
open to such revision remains a matter of debate until we're old enough
(as a democracy) to express dissent against the basic structure doctrine
of Indian
Constitution or upon finally being in agreement that we have
all reached the ideals we sought.
Its almost a dirty job but
someone has to do it by reminding the author that perhaps in "
India"
Arundhati Roy is exalted as a revolutionary but in "
Bharat" she has made
the blood boil of many a
tax-paying-citizen who is yet to understand
the
nuanced difference between
Nationalism and
Cosmopolitanism. Religion
and Nationalism therefore, remain for the majority of our country folk,
the equivalent of what
Plato called "
Noble lies" and contribute more to
the stability of the country than most liberals would have us believe.
The Government of India has once again, swallowed a bitter pill by
charging Roy with
Sedition.
The author accuses the Indian
state of sinking to a new low in democratic self confidence and I want
to ask - was our democratic self confidence ever higher than this? A
nation that was wrenched from the hands of a
world power on the
principles of
non-violence and
peaceful dissent must always be wary of
those very principles working against it as it moves towards more
emancipatory levels of inclusion.
To
diffuse peaceful dissent
peacefully is the call of the hour and although I myself do find the
charges of sedition leveled against Roy a trifle extreme, I reluctantly
acquiesce knowing the sensitivity of the issue and the
fragile nature of
our
unity-in-diversity.