Column

If anyone needs proof that a democracy cannot be built merely by having free and fair elections, India is Exhibit A. We have been successfully holding elections since 1947, and almost all of them have brought in governments voted by the vast majority of the people. No question, therefore, that we qualify as a democracy on this count.

But that’s about it. A democracy has many components to it, but in India, two central elements are missing. One, the core justice system –– courts, police, and the legal structure, in general –– is dysfunctional.

Two, there is no widely accepted social compact which says that we can disagree completely with one another, but we have the right to say what we want to without having to fear for life and limb. Both are missing in India, where mobocracy rules.

Few people would disagree that it is almost impossible for ordinary souls to get justice. If someone vandalises my car for no reason, I cannot get the miscreant to pay –– unless I know someone who is more powerful than the vandal, or I can offer enough money to get the police to act on my behalf.

But even if they do, the vandal can decide he will use local thugs to threaten my family day in and day out. I would be helpless.

A prime example of mobocracy is the Sena mayhem in Navi Mumbai last Wednesday. Scores of private cars were targeted and smashed. The mobs were ostensibly fighting the farmer’s cause; they were allegedly protesting against land acquisition for Reliance’s special economic zone (SEZ). But their ire was targeted at third parties (car owners) who had nothing to do with the SEZ or land acquisition.

It would be easy to blame the political parties for this, but the truth is that citizens seldom object to all the vandalism committed in the name of some cause or the other.

I recently read the reaction of the Muslim Intellectual Forum to the attack on Taslima Nasreen in Hyderabad by MLAs and goons of the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM).

I was thrilled to read the first line, which condemned “the dastardly attack” on the Bangladeshi author, but was underwhelmed by the tone of the rest of the 750-and-odd word statement.

The bulk of it was, in fact, a veiled attack on Taslima, Salman Rushdie, the West, Tony Blair etc. Many grievances of the Muslim community were brought into it (discrimination, the 1992-93 Mumbai riots) for no apparent reason.

I got the impression that the few opening lines were meant to be politically correct, but the rest of the statement gave out the real message: Taslima brought it on herself, but Muslims should either ignore her or use their pen against her. The statement even offered Taslima gratuitous advice on improving her knowledge of the Holy Koran.

When a statement ostensibly put out in defence of free speech seriously criticises the victim, how will this do anything to curb mobocracy in our country? When the mobs are anyway against you, should intellectuals be providing them with moral justification for their cause?

This is almost exactly what happened in Gujarat in 2002 and Mumbai in 1992-93 –– the big events in mobocracy –– when action-reaction arguments were put out to defend one crime or the other.

More recently, we have seen this in incidents relating to the Danish cartoons, MF Husain’s paintings, and the Taslima case. The intelligentsia has either kept mum or issued mixed statements like the one I have pointed out above. The mobs know they can get away with murder.

To cap it all, we all know that the justice system does not work in most such cases. Take Apart from the 1992 Babri Masjid case, the Samajwadi minister who promised crores to someone who would kill the Danish cartoonist is still at large. The MIM goons are also thumping their chests.

For intellectuals and even ordinary citizens who value human rights and free speech over mobocracy, it is no longer enough to record pious statements of disapproval against people who indulge in violence because their religious, caste or community sentiments have been hurt.

They have to stand –– and be seen to stand –– on the side of free speech, even if it means offending some community or the other. Keeping silent is the ultimate cop-out.

Email: r_jagannathan@dnaindia.net