The joys of the forward-looking statement

The joys of the forward-looking statement

One of the joys of writing pieces for the Edit and Op-ed Pages of a national daily broadsheet, is the facility and licence to make “forward looking statements”.

During my decades in corporate life, it was something of a taboo to do so with regard to the affairs of public limited companies. The fear was that it would cause sharp-hearing punters and heavier-duty investors to trade on the listed stock of the company based on such pronouncements, which could provide a straws-in-the-wind reckoning on which way it was likely to lean in the future, and what profits could be made by speculating on such inclination.

In America and the West, and lately in India, the procedure, hallowed and admired once in financial market circles for the derring-do initiative it showed, is now anathema, and labelled a criminal offence. “Insider trading” attracts the punishment of instant dismissal and criminal prosecution. If convicted, it will tend to get one fairly long jail sentences too.

Plus, there were the hierarchical requirements which specified who was or wasn’t an “authorised spokesman”, and just what he or she was authorised to speak or issue written statements on. Even top brass were not immune to such restrictions, on the principle one always has to serve somebody. Of course, they could also feign ignorance of lowly operational matters when it suited them, but that is quite another matter.  

Then again, all the information and persuasive pitching, was an attempt at opinion formation, which is also the objective of senior journalists and their not so distant cousins,  the politicos. The urgent messaging seeks to influence and convert, via the medium of the well-written or well-spoken word, timed well too, and accompanied wherever possible, by relevant images.

Otherwise, it would just be so much reportage, and though it is eminently possible to slant reports to suit one’s world view, editorial writing and appearing on TV talk-shows provides a rather freer format to hold forth according to one’s persuasion. And long has it been known that fancy oratory can certainly give birth to the occasional good idea too.

Politics, with its proximity to power via the EVM (electronic voting machine), has the inside track on this declamatory process in theory, necessary for the all-important gathering of votes, along with a liberal use of monetary and other inducements.

But, it is seen that too much of the political messaging in India lately is about feint and parry, essentially defensive manoeuvre, minimalistic in scope, and very little by way of the expected thrust of leadership and the grand sweep of vision.  Our Prime Minister, for example, seems reluctant to voice his opinions altogether, as if expecting to be ridiculed in the midst of his chaotic governance. When he comes out to speak to the public or the media, he gives the clear impression that he is doing so under pressure from his party.

In this prevailing climate of drift, most committed commentators sound like apologists of the UPA or the Opposition as the case may be, or indeed the Left, who uniquely manage to appear opposed to whatever is going on, whether they are in formal support of the Government, any issue, or not.

But with all this caginess as the prevailing order, it makes for a dreary narrative that rarely takes the India story or plot-line forward for the hopeful. That we are going through tough economic times both at home and globally does not help either.  

Civil Society comes across, alas, as mostly naïve, with a great deal of fury and thunder that still isn’t tantamount to effective intervention, though Mr. Anna Hazare may prove this perception wrong yet. At least it is trying to do something to clean up the mess, and for that intention and effort it deserves appreciation from those who do much less.

And to carry the corporate analogy forward, politics does not actually destabilise the polity with its manifestoes, however radical, even though most are rarely implemented. Election promises too are largely forgotten once in power. But the fact remains, a great deal of governance is about policy making and its implementation, and has to be both continuous and viewed from a long term perspective.

In a democracy, to find a Government that seems to say nothing at all about its future direction is both disappointing and distressing. Nothing that is, apart from occasional probing comments pronounced by the more quixotic amongst its spokespersons, aimed at shoring up its perceived vote banks. And then, there is the tactic of routine and boring denial in counterpoint to the criticisms of the populace, the media, and the judiciary and, of course, the Opposition.

Combined with a dysfunctional parliamentary session or two, even as it will be interesting to see how the political classes handle the current Monsoon session, the picture of rudderless drift and insouciant unresponsiveness is more or less complete. Not to mention the huge legislative backlog suffering from unforgivable neglect! Juxtaposed with a politician’s natural urge to be a little economical with the truth, it makes for disinformation in place of transparency.

Which brings us to the central point of the deteriorated quality of our democratic discourse. We have parliamentarians and state legislators, who do not uphold the grand traditions of parliamentary democracy, but instead trash them under the full public gaze and the media spotlight, like so many loutish schoolboys. We have institutions, set up by our founding fathers to be vigilant against subversion of the workings of Government, ruthlessly compromised by political interference, to the extent that they are more or less beholden to the Government of the day. A bureaucracy that is disconnected and suffering from the same malaise as the institutions. And we have a judiciary, also corrupt in parts, and wholly overburdened to the extent that it can barely dispense justice.

So where do we go from here? Is it the abyss of failure to implement the vision of our founding fathers, or are we on the verge of a renewal and modernisation in our functioning that will give us new hope and determination to succeed?

It could go either way of course, but the balance of power seems in favour of an electorate growing more sophisticated in its needs and wants. Much of the dissonance being experienced today springs from a society and nation in the throes of growing up. The elected representatives in our young republic will have to respond to this new and more demanding reality therefore, or be replaced by others, more attuned to the present day, and willing to do so.

(1, 096 words)

1^st August 2011

Gautam Mukherjee

Updated version of this post published as "India's road to redemption" as the leader edit on the Edit Page of The Pioneer on 20th August, 2011. Also published online at www.dailypioneer.com and featured in the ePaper and is archived under Columnists at www.dailypioneer.com