The rise of illiberal liberalism and the stifling of debate

The Zee JLF 2019 was, once again, a grand success. Obviously, the energy and quality of participation is bound to vary from year to year, but all the trademark features which make the Zee JLF the kumbh mela of literature festivals were present this year as well. Of these, one is the closing debate, which attracts the widest audience participation and maximum interest. As curator Namita Gokhale puts it, “Everyone who listens ends up feeling empowered. They know their voices and views matter.” Going by the audience response, I couldn’t agree more.

This year I was the opening speaker in a panel that was as daunting as distinguished. On the “Left” were former Union Ministers Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid, both top-notch politician-advocates, author Sagarika Ghose, and commentator Mihir Sharma; on the “Right,” eminent former IFS officer and current Minister of State (Independent Charge), Hardeep Singh Puri, cultural icon and MP, Padma Vibhushan Sonal Mansingh, historian and curator Vikram Sampath, and I. The debate was ably, wittily, sometimes provocatively, but always pleasantly moderated by Srinivasan Jain (Vasu) of NDTV. 

Ironically, I was seated on the far left, being the first one on the stage. I made a joke of it saying I was, after all, from JNU. But the issue at hand was far more serious. Do liberals stifle debate? The answer was neither simple nor straightforward. No, ordinarily, liberals do not stifle debate, illiberals or bigots do. But now the situation seems to be reversed. Unfortunately, many liberals today are mostly if not the most illiberal of us. Which is why we are going through the crisis if not the twilight of liberalism. The world over, debate, discussion, and dissent are stifled in the name of liberalism — as Sir Richard Dawkins famously was prevented from speaking at Berkeley. Was that one reason, someone from the US in the audience asked, Donald Trump won?

Nor is this intolerance new. Earlier, liberals not only looked away from facing up to Stalinist atrocities, but actually collaborated with the Soviet Union, even going to the extent of spying for the USSR against their own country. The extra-national and extra-territorial loyalties of some of our own Indian liberals are well-known, whether they be champagne socialists holding China dearer than Mother India or LeLis who in the name of economic liberalism profiteer and cheat their own country, parking their ill-gotten gains in secret Swiss accounts.

But what about us on the stage? We were all liberals ourselves, weren’t we? Then whom were we debating? Or were we talking only to ourselves? Liberal, conservative, left, right, and so on — all show the poverty of our thought and are symptomatic of our colonisation, which still continues. Like borrowed plumes, we also appropriate terminology, defining ourselves by parameters and frameworks that do not fit our social, cultural, historical or political reality. Shouldn’t we ask, instead, are we dharmic or adharmic? Or to shift to a Persianised idiom, are we imandaar or be-imaan? Our problem, then, is not lack of ideology but of integrity. Our failing is not liberalism but hypocrisy.

What such conundrums, whether verbal or conceptual, underscore is the fatal flaw in the very framing of the debate. The debate was misframed because it ignored the elephant in the room, the alienation and incompetence of our elites, whom we might even term ‘casually malign’ if not ‘brutally indifferent’. Those who swear by Mahatma Gandhi are today the first to abuse his key tenet—Satya or Truth. Our liberals have got themselves a bad name for espousing illiberal causes. This class, neither non-resident Indian (NRI), nor resident non-Indians (RNI), but resident unIndians (RuI), makes us rue the fact that they continue to rule the economic, political, and cultural roost. No wonder they have earned themselves the unenviable sobriquet ‘Lutyens Delhi’—the pun on loot, unmistakable even to those who don’t know how to pronounce the word. India for them is only a place to oppress and exploit, not to belong or serve.

In the end, all the speakers performed rather well; some like Puri, with great passion, others like Sibal with dry, caustic wit. Vasu, departing from convention, asked us to dispense with our closing remarks, urging us in place to say one nice thing about our opponents. This exercise was hilarious because it was half-hearted. In the end, however, the needle of audience support, heavily tilted in favour of the liberals at the beginning, seemed to shift considerably to mid-point. Does it mean that we worst the pseudo-liberals?

Rather, I would like to think, no side lost, but dialogue and democracy won. No mean achievement in our troubled times. Which is one reason why Zee JLF continues to be our best and most happening litfest, first mover and still the market leader.

Author is Director, IIAS, Shimla Views are personal