dailyO
Politics

Demonetisation would have made Gandhi weep

Advertisement
Abishek Jebaraj
Abishek JebarajDec 06, 2016 | 15:27

Demonetisation would have made Gandhi weep

The image of the Mahatma Gandhi has become dearer to every Indian since the day our present government announced its demonetisation drive. It has left me wondering about what Bapu would have thought of the sorry state of affairs in our country decades after he traded sweat and blood for India's freedom.

As a man who cherished freedom so dearly, what would he have made of the Supreme Court that tells its citizens how it must respect the national flag and when it must do so.

Advertisement

How would he have reacted to a prime minister who even controls how much of their own money citizens are allowed to access? Would he have shuddered at the thought of our present Parliament being tasked with the drafting of our sacred Constitution?

For those of you who may accuse me of being an anti-national, pessimist with a saffron-hating heart, let me list a few things that would have made our beloved Bapu smile. Yes, he would be proud to know that for all of India’s problems, we have remained the most diverse nation on earth.

It would rekindle in him that familiar spirit of resilience when he meets our poor who are bravely willing to go hungry in the interest of national reform.

jayabd_120516104609_120616032114.jpg
The present political powers in Tamil Nadu exemplify how sycophancy is used to enslave voters to an endless cycle of megalomaniacal tyranny. Credit: Reuters

Our thirst for change would have inspired him, be it our technological leapfrogging or the IIT graduates who once went to school barefoot.

Yet, if there is one thing I’m sure the father of our nation would weep over today, it would have to be our shameful tolerance of political tokenism. It could not have been anywhere this bad in his time. To be objective, the British were very oppressive towards Indians, but they did do some good to the Indian people at large, even offering comforts to people willing to toe their line.

Advertisement

Some of the education institutions built by them have remained, their fantastic infrastructure [built in the early 1900s] is still being used and they even taught us cricket. These measures, however, were not enough for the Indian masses to believe that the British government put their wellbeing above British interests.

In short, a majority of the Indian people had no tolerance towards the political tokenism of the British. What must deeply shame us in today’s India is that a majority of us wholeheartedly buys into such political tokenism.

We laud a government for making “radical” black money reform while it sits on a heap of black money within its own party. We hail our leaders for their bold decisions to carry out surgical strikes to defend our Kashmiris, but overlook their cowardice in violently suppressing civilian dissent in the same Valley.

Strict action is taken against an AAP parliamentarian who breached national security in a high security zone, but we don’t take to the streets against brazen legislation that seriously compromises national security by allowing political donations by Indian companies with foreign shareholding.

The gimmick of political tokenism is such that it even distracts from holding our leaders accountable for their follies.

Advertisement

When one politician does something on a particular front that warrants dismissal, or even prosecution, they use such tokenistic acts on another front to either obliterate their wrongs from our memory or make us believe that their wrongs need to be condoned. And we never fail to swallow this narrative. It is amusing how a politician like Nitin Gadkari who seems to still be under the scanner for illegalities is being lauded for his infrastructure and highway reforms.

Or take Sushma Swaraj whose swift action for helping distressed Indian citizens abroad has reduced the "Lalitgate" controversy to an entertainment episode hosted by Arnab Goswami, which we once enjoyed.

Although the jury is still out on the controversy, she has been presently elevated to the position of one of the best performing Cabinet ministers.

The list of politicians who use tokenism to their advantage cuts across party and geographical lines.

I am, by no means, taking away any good away from the praiseworthy acts of Swaraj or Gadkari, but we cannot allow tokenism to correct a previous wrong with a present right. We cannot afford such a low standard for our politicians.

There is no country in the world where political tokenism isn’t used to the advantage of political actors.

India, though, is sadly one of those countries where its people so easily succumb to such obvious political tokenism - so much so that had the masses during the freedom struggle bought into such obvious tokenism, we would have never found our Independence.

The line between what is and isn’t political tokenism may blur. But there are some obvious signs that call out such tokenism.

In the Twitter age, where one impressive tweet from a politician gets sycophants and critics trolling or lauding them, political speech not followed up with action is the easiest way to call out tokenism.

Making the odd dramatic statement towards protecting religious minorities does no good if serious incidents that violate our religious freedoms are altogether denied. When it comes to protecting most liberties, our government shamelessly engages in this form of tokenism, flaunted by its very leaders.

Creating some reform towards desired change while refusing other urgent ones towards them same objective is another obvious trope of such tokenism. It baffles me that a party in power can’t start its fight against black money by first making all of its political donations public.

We can debate demonetisation all we want, but the sad truth is that if we are so easily lured by political tokenism, all the precious black money recovered will be fed into the same hands that squander it.

The biggest indicator of tokenism though are politicians in power who refuse to hold themselves up to the same or greater standards that their electors are held to.

Sadly, almost all political parties in India today breed a culture of tokenism, leaving the country in desperate need for better alternatives. Worse still is our vulnerability to astute political tokenism fed with shameless political opportunism.

The way voters are so often wooed with cash and goodies is a fitting example of tokenism wedded to opportunism. The present political powers in Tamil Nadu exemplify how this evil mix is used to enslave voters to an endless cycle of megalomaniacal tyranny.

If only we could resist the bait of tokenism with the same hope and sacrifice that we place in debatable tokenistic reforms, India would begin to prosper.

Last updated: December 06, 2016 | 15:27
IN THIS STORY
Please log in
I agree with DailyO's privacy policy