Here's to you, Mr. Hazare/ Its more complicated than you would know!

Anna Hazare comes to North Campus on a day after Independence day to up his ante against the Government to reconsider the 'Team Anna' version of the Lokpal Bill. The PM office has snubbed his letter asking for permission to protest for more than three days at JP Park by asking him to 'approach statutory authorities'. That's the way of a democracy, isn't it? Mr. Hazare is a self professed Gandhian. Is he reducing the importance of his movement by taking it a bit too far? We cannot but agree that Gandhiji himself was a master of realpolitik. But is there place for repeated popular protest in democracy? Would Gandhiji himself have allowed it? I haven't read enough of his writings to comment on that. It appears though that his adversary on many occasions, and one of the prime architects of Indian Democracy, B.R. Ambedkar would have been skeptical. This is from Ram Guha's India After Gandhi:

Ambedkar ended his speech with three warnings about the future. The first concerned the place of popular protest in a democracy. There was no place for bloody revolution, of course, but in his view there was no room for Gandhian methods either. 'We must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non cooperation and Satyagraha [popular protest]'. Under an autocratic regime there might have been justification for them, but not now, when constitutional methods of redress were available. Satyagraha and the like, said Ambedkar, were 'nothing but the grammar of anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us'.

(This was said in a speech made by Ambedkar on 25th November, 1949 to the Drafting Committee of the Constitution. Interestingly, the other two warnings were against "unthinking submission to charismatic authority" and contentment with 'mere political democracy'.)


Does Anna Hazare then reserve the right to continue his street marches. Perhaps he does, if the Indian democracy has failed, or is becoming increasing authoritarian (recently Anna did say that the current situation has become much similar to Emergency). Admittedly, the failure of democracy in India, in fact the idea of democracy itself as a just political system, is too severely and widely debated for all the issues to be grasped at once. Yet, here's something I chanced upon.

Question: Is there really any point hoping for a 'non-corrupt' political system in a democracy?

On naming this blog...

What’s in a name? Two things: one, a sense of purpose. A name indicates what the item at hand deals with, its characteristics, something that defines it in its entirety and brings out its individual traits. It is solely concerned with describing what is inherent, almost denoting the spiritual identity of the object. Two, a name helps the outer world connect to the thing that has been named – a relatively more material pursuit. The name leads to the immediate attraction – catching the eye – and subsequently becomes a link in the channel of communication. So a name completes the being – both sides of its world, the inner and the outer. It was this thought that went into naming this one – of dichotomy and diversity.

I love life; at times, I hate it too. We all do. Over time, I have managed some insight into this phenomenon. In fact, this phenomenon itself is an example of a wider experience that seems to set the stage for everything that happens to us as individuals and, collectively, as a society; an experience that is the very cause of this alternation. The experience is persistent – it gives us the options, helps us make the choices and regenerates itself once those choices are made. It is a circular constellation that always holds us in its grasp – almost feeding onto itself and growing bigger each time. It is the experience of dichotomy in life – a two-mindedness, a duality that accosts us at every turn, every milestone, every speed breaker. There is the pervasive existence of the other – the ego and the alter-ego, the spiritual and the material, symbiosis and competition, the past and the future. It does not end. We remain rather oblivious of this duality when it is possible to manage both the opposing forces at the same time, to hold them together consensually. However, it becomes more than apparent when we fail to do so. The economics of it is simple: scare resources lead to the inevitability of tradeoffs. There is an objective to be maximised under certain constraints, but in reality the constraints are dynamic and keeps changing. (While this forms the basis of ‘rational behaviour’, it can at times drive one to the peak of ‘irrationality’ – although in slightly differentiated implications of the term ‘rational’). The dichotomy perhaps can be elaborated as a something that makes everyday a balancing act between faith and temptation. Faith – a value judgement of one stand being better than the other – and temptation – an attraction towards the other – constantly interact against each other. Faith may be determined by upbringing, by instruction, by personal reactions to circumstances (usually based on the previous two) as also (though only in desperate situations) by the lack of options. Similarly, temptation is also guided by internal factors and externalities. It might be that circumstances push us into disbelieving in our faith. Or, it might just be that we wish to experiment with something else for reasons of variation and newness. The first issue lies with the ‘tug-of-war’ between faith and temptation that makes following a single path very difficult. However it is important to realise that even if we let faith go for the temptation, the second issue arises in that faith reverses to become the new temptation, for the older temptation has taken its place.

It is this double layered configuration that makes life separate from mere existence. It gives life its vitality – always keeping one on his feet, pushing them to make choices and shape their lives – and makes it enjoyable. Nonetheless, this switching from one end to the other may involve pain, suffering, inconvenience and monetary losses – things that may be clubbed under the idea of ‘transition costs’. So the switching, continually or even once tires people out, leading to despair, and makes them hate life (at times). Nonetheless, it is something that makes it interesting.

The dichotomy also leads to another idea that again makes life very remarkable – diversity. Because the dichotomy results in people making different choices over a varying range of issues, the cumulative result is much more than a simple on-off button. It encapsulates a variety of mixes and matches, each individual choosing his appropriate bundle. The diversity is thus unavoidable, as well as exciting. There are two lessons here though, one leading from the other. First, as diversity is inevitable, we must learn to both respect and manage it. Second, to respect and manage it, we must first appreciate the underlying dichotomy.

This blog seeks to detail dichotomy and diversity, often in approaches that will differ and may not directly display either of the notions. However, they will form the colours in palette that will be used to paint the ultimate picture. It may be sheer experience or rigorous analysis, but it always displays an underplay of the two forces. Hope it gives the reader as much insight into things, as it gives me!