The Juggernaut of Democracy

The temple car festival in the Indian town of Puri (Odisha state) is said to have so stunned the foreign travellers like Franciscan Monk Odoric of Pordenone in the 13th century that Europe came to accept the term "Juggernaut" as meaning something so immense, so powerful and overwhelming. From HG Wells to so many writers used the term juggernaut to describe events and feelings of people in their works. The term has come to part of a few thousand Hindustani words that have been incorporated into English dictionaries. 

If a mere temple car of wood, few hundred tons in weight, invokes such awe and wonder, elections in the coming days in India that involves the biggest exercise in democracy anywhere in the world should actually be stupefying. How the world takes India may be a question for debate, but how India takes this mammoth exercise is a wonder beyond anything that ancient, medieval or modern history has ever witnessed. Take some statistics to understand this wonder:

1. Elections will be held for 543 constituencies in 07 phases between 11 April to 19 May 2019 across India. Indian Parliament has 543 representatives of people from across all communities and minorities including marginalized sections called Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes.

2. A total of 1,841 political parties will contest in the general election 2019. More than 8000 candidates are being fielded by these parties.

3. As estimated by a leading center for media studies, the elections will cost INR 500 bn (USD 75 mn) 

4. 90,00,000,000 voters are expected vote. This is 9,00,000,000 (10% increase approx) more than the last general election in 2014.

5. In the last general election in 2014, 6600000000 people voted. Statistically speaking, it is about 81 percent. If we take that as a trend, 7200000000 people will vote today. Nearly a sixth of these voters are first time voters. Approximately two-thirds of the voters are around 35 years of age.  

5. Election Commission of India will set up 10,35,918 Polling Stations in the country. This itself perhaps is a world record. If China does not turn to electoral democracy, such records set by India can never be broken by any other country.

6. 11,00,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are slated to be used in these polling stations.

7. Even transgenders are registered as voters. Approximately 39000 are registered.

The 17th General Election in a span of nearly eight decades of the independent history of the country speaks volumes about the strong foundations that the makers of India Constitution sowed in 1950. It also reflects the strong ethos that are ingrained in the Indian psyche, literate or illiterate by common standards of the world. It is a belief that transcends the normal, reflecting the  innate ecclesiastic character of India.

The Juggernaut will roll in the phases that it is scheduled. Yet again, it will decide the course this great democracy will take in the next five years. The course that it takes will not only affect the dreams of its billions of citizens; it will also affect the destinies of South Asia in an era when dominance over South Asian waters is vigorously sought by neighbors with not so democratic a credential that this Juggernaut can flaunt.

  

Symbolism and National Culture

On the 26th of every year, the Raj Path in Delhi comes ablaze with the crunch of military boots and the clank of armoured vehicles. Columns after columns of soldiers in their finest dress uniforms march past the President of India who solemnly returns their salutes. Braving the biting cold and early morning fog, thousands of people from Delhi and all over the country line up the Raj Path and the road leading to Red Fort, waving flags and chanting 'Bharat Maata ki Jai'. 

As has been the tradition from 1950, the Prime Minister of India pays solemn homage to the martyrs of the Armed forces, symbolically to the entire serving personnel in uniform, at the India Gate memorial. Then the supreme commander of the Armed Forces, the President of India, takes the salute of the serving, retired veterans from all shades of uniform as they march past the saluting dais. What follows are contingents of cultural troupes and tableau that represent the unity of diverse Indian culture. As I watch the panorama unfold every year, a question comes to the mind – why is that the prime Minister pays homage at India Gate, whereas the President takes the salute? And, some simple answers strike the mind.

The Prime Minister, as the executive head of government is the one who will commit the Armed forces into action in war, for war is a political decision. Those millions of men will fix bayonet and pounce on the enemy, defending the territorial integrity and sovereign principles of this country at his command. The sacrifices that they make are the price that he will pay to safeguard the political unity of India as a country. Hence, it is only proper that he recognizes their sacrifice as vital to the safeguarding of the edifice that is India by paying homage at India Gate.

The President, even though designated as the Supreme Commander, is the sovereign head of state. Like the monarchs of yore, he presides over all institutions of statehood – the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. It is in his name that acts are passed; executive decisions are conveyed and judicial pronouncements are upheld. The Armed Forces represent the power of the sovereignty of which the President is the face. That is why he presides over the parade as well as the cultural representation of the country.

The RD parade is not just a parade that displays India’s military might. It is not an occasion that merely represents India rises in the world as a sovereign democratic republic. It is a showcase of the fundamental principle that the founding fathers of this nation held as most dear to them – unity in diversity. A nation of thirty three million gods including the gods that humanity ever invented elsewhere; a nation that speaks 22 languages and over 1600 dialects; and a nation that celebrates the unity of its spirit in its abundant diversity. India - the enigma, the puzzle, the beauty, the indescribable.

The great saint of our times, whose 150^th centenary that we observed last year, Swami Vivekanada, said that it is in its indomitable faith of the spirit that India is actually one. The gods are merely representational. John McLeod, in his Beginning: Postcolonialism, says “Nations are not like trees and plants: they are not a naturally occurring phenomenon”. And, Eric Hobsbawm argued that, ‘the nation depends upon the invention of national traditions which are made manifest through the repetition of specific symbols or icons. The performance of national traditions keeps in place an important sense of continuity between the nations present and past, and helps concoct the unique sense of the shared history and common origins of its people. Nations often traffic in highly revered symbols that help forge a sense of its particular, idiosyncratic identity in which the nation’s people emotionally invest”.

It is important that, unlike the Delhi CM Arvind Kejiriwal who called it as a showcase of VIP culture, we understand that the RD Parade is an occasion when the cultural unity of India is strengthened. Such displays help the people of India bond with the idea of the nation that we are and reinforce the idea of an India that is strong and rising. In fact, aside Delhi, Tamil Nadu is one state that observes the day in the true spirit of the Republic representing the best that is in the traditions of Tamils as well as the country. We must continue to have these symbolism, while parallelly building through education and practice, strong character and respect for multicultural representation in our public and private life, if we are to make India the super power that we all dream of.

Silk Road Reaches Europe

Pliny is said to have lamented two thousand years ago that Roman woman wear their Chinese silks in such a way that there is nothing left for imagination! More so was the colossal amount of silver and gold that poured out of Rome and Athens into China for the goods that the population in Southern Europe adoringly imported from there. Of course, with the conquest of West Asia by the Mongols, the direction of flow of the bullion and silver changed a little initially but reverted back to heartland China when Kublai Khan established a kingdom that we know as China today.

History has a penchant for repeating itself. In so doing it appears to offer the peoples affected by it opportunities to draw lessons from its earlier cycles and correct their courses. Those nations that do manage to learn their lessons will go on to become empires. Those who don't are, of course, condemned to repeat their past.

And no one seems to have studied the lessons of their history better than China. On 23rd March 2019, China signed an MoU (however non-binding it was made to sound) with Italy by which Italy has agreed to join the Belt Road Initiative (BRI). The new Silk Road that China has been meticulously canvassing for in the past six years, gathering about 70 nations across Central & South Asia and Africa in its fold, has now formally reached Rome, once again after a thousand years.

Nations across the spectrum have been making noises about the debt-diplomacy that China has used to extend the reach of its BRI. With over 13 Trillion USD in its kitty, its pocket is indeed deep and it is but evident that the terms of offer of financial assistance are anything but tempting to cash-starved nations. Added to the lure of attractive development assistance, it is the anticipated development itself that serves as the major attraction.

It is easier to fall prey to the temptation of China baiting on its debt-diplomacy. Instead, we must admit a simple fact that nations will have to act in their best national interest and no country that is in the 'ivy league' of nations can be said to be acting otherwise, purely in international community interest. Therefore, it is perhaps time for international lending agencies to take a call on their lending terms and see whether the 'ailing' and needing nations could be extended assistance under more affordable terms to help realize their developmental goals. While doing so, it is also necessary to avoid playing into the hands of geopolitical compulsions that may again push nations to seek assistance from other softer privy purses. The agenda is not to counter China. It is to balance an approach that will help nations to work together to achieve goals that create economic opportunities and prosperity in their own lands.

China may go ahead and realize its BRI objectives with or without interference from other big players in the arena. That China does so is not necessarily a cause for concern if the community of nations along its way take their calls for cooperation on BRI after due consideration of their longtime national interests. The political leaders in those countries should avoid joining the bandwagon for immediate political or even personal gains. 

The Four Seasons of Patriotism

Barack Obama, unarguably one of the greatest contemporary American Presidents, is quoted to have said: 

"We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense".

One of the most important aspects that his statement highlights is that there can be no freedom without commitment; that there can be no freedom without patriotism.

It is perhaps interesting to sit back and look at ourselves on occasions when we feel patriotic. We will be amused to find that our patriotism is of four seasons.

The first season starts with the arrival of national days like our independence day, constitution day, etc. With the advent of social media, we get a flood of messages, often repetitive and from people of whom you are convinced that they are incapable thinking beyond the shadow of their shoes. But then what the heck? You get reeducated on the significance of such occasions; the people who penned your national anthems; what the founders of your constitution said or unsaid; the great bind (I still am on the look out for it for the past half a century) that connects us one people; etc, etc. Of course for the majority of kids (I am not sure if kids could be 16 and below. After all every one is a kid to their parents), such days are usually granted holidays to spend time with family and friends.

The second season arrives with the disembarkation of a coffin that is wrapped in the colors of the country. The media makes a beeline to the funerals in which smartly dressed soldiers (police, etc) lift their guns on to their shoulders and fire empty shells into the air. The whole community gathers around the glare of cameras to tell the world how proud they are that the man in the casket died. What they do not say of course is how happier they are that their own youngster finished his engineering or MBA from MITs, Harvards, UCLAs and the like, and is entrenched in a war with corporate honchos that is much more grueling. They regret that the sacrifices that their wards have made (think of those board meetings lasting into mid nights, those un-celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, those missed holidays or time with family) simply go unsung.

The third season arrives with dazzling insights. Standing in front of the jury and judges for having committed such innocuous acts like cheating millions out of unsuspecting investors, declaring solvency  after building empires out of the sweat of millions, and such like. One does wonder why freedom doesn't include the freedom to loot? Is anybody holding the early Americans, Australians, Britons, French, Dutch, Spaniards and Portuguese (did I leave out any one...) for what they did to the natives just to get hold of the wealth of the land. Why then are they making such a fuss now? After all, I am no Columbus or Captain Cook. It's my own country and these others seem to have what I desire of them...

The fourth is a season of opportunities. It usually belongs to the political class and sometimes to the wealthy and influential movers and makers of the nations. They, of course, have the privilege of invoking it in times when they find that the going is not exactly not in the directions that are to the liking of their ilk.

The four seasons of patriotism apply to every sovereign territory that we may belong. They are universal. And, these are the seasons that apply to every region irrespective of the terrain that any nation can claim of. They do not belong to a terrain or climate. They are universal. That is the beauty of patriotism.