Insouciance

Insouciance

Insouciance is a kind of uncaring nonchalance born of smugness. There is a suggestion of wilful idleness about it, a sense of entitlement, and an assumption that one can get away with not delivering on one’s promises.  

And even some twisted thinking that suggests that doing what one says dangerously raises expectations. And should these be met, it only fuels even higher, unreasonable and unwarranted aspirations amongst essentially undeserving, ignorant people, best not encouraged above their station.

And therefore, it is implicitly better to drown such ambition at birth using ruthless subversion. Of course, you will never catch a politician or factotum saying any of this out loud. On the contrary, the average neta or bureaucratic burra sahib will feign horrified protest against such calumny being heaped on his ilk.

This is all the more remarkable because in a democracy which presumes to promote equality of opportunity, it is a patrician/feudal attitude, papered over with egalitarian and pro-people rhetoric. This is all the more ironic because in recent times, many elected representatives do not exactly come from a background of privilege.

But fact is, our common or garden politician and “steel frame” bureaucrat fits the bill for both insouciance writ large, and nonchalance too, though the latter term has a  Dev Anandish charm about it, found, in this context, to be missing in action.

The lesser accompaniments to these exalted personages, including all manner of secretaries, clerks, “officers” and agents at large, are not so humble that they are incapable of aping their masters.

So, for the supplicating public to be nearly squashed under this mountain of hubris is a very natural thing. That it makes them somewhat angry and full of the malice of schadenfreude, that peculiar but oh so real German notion of deriving pleasure at another’s misfortune, is therefore not surprising.

Particularly since now, you have this former army driver in a Gandhi cap and whites, in possession of a very effective wagging finger, that has lit a fire under all this insulation from reality.

Here was the standard issue politician, state, central, in meaner municipal/local government, or even quango setting, comfortable in the belief that he had to only think about his voter near about an election, and not at all otherwise, sanctimoniousness apart.

And suddenly, the former driver and social activist from Ralegan Siddhi, an obscure backwater in usually placid rural Maharashtra, is jumping all over one’s mind space. Mr. Anna Hazare is not only able to capture the media attention, but quite a bit of the popular imagination as well with his relentless Government bashing. People love an underdog going to war and understand one that talks in comfortable sound bytes.

That Mr. Hazare is simplistic is the true delight of the masses, if truth be told. People are sick of being bamboozled and patronised by insincere men and women, some elected to public office, some in unsackable Government jobs, and yet others in political parties and committees, who wield enormous power without being accountable to very many, let alone the public.

And this challenge to the comfortable politician and bureaucrat has been mounted at a time when the ruling classes are seen to have mismanaged both the economy and the political landscape. And brought it down to the point where not only is there policy formulation and implementation paralysis, but also a rapidly developing dire straits in terms of its rapidly depleting coffers.

The Government has choked the economy in the pursuit of lower inflation to the point where it is almost broke itself. Both direct and indirect taxes have fallen, and the need to borrow to bridge ever widening deficits has grown. Though you wouldn’t necessarily realise it if you looked at the ever expanding subsidy raj we cannot afford being thrust upon mute future generations.

Of course, the Indian Government routinely tends to see the light only when it reaches the end of its dark dank tunnel. It is always a rock bottom moment that brings substantive change to us, in a paradoxical, Through the Looking Glass manner. So expect a cut in interest rates and stimulation of growth afresh in 2012. Looking back to 1991, Mr. Narasimha Rao was able to jettison Nehruvian Socialism once and for all only because we had come perilously close to bankruptcy. And most “reform” of our system since has also been with a gun to our heads. We cannot arrive at a political consensus on any improvement without this coercive aspect, and perhaps it won’t be long before future governance learns how to stage a crisis for the purpose!

But as long as the taps of cheaper credit are turned back on, the reportedly Rs. 150,000 crores worth of Non-Performing-Assets (NPAs), consisting of  loans to stalled power sector companies and moribund infrastructure builders, can all be revived. And quick to forgive Indian industry can put the folly of monetary Stalinism behind itself.

And, once again, the politico and bureaucrat will be saved from the consequences of their sins. If you’re a mere member of the public, all you have to do is wait for it, and survive long enough to see the worm turn.

And yet with a report card hovering between failed grades and the bottom most rungs of scraping through, there is no real mea culpa. Instead, there is a pointing of fingers at civil society abrogating to itself the proper functions of our elected representatives. As if it is being done without provocation or cause by a group of misguided and subversive individuals naïve about the functioning and needs of governance.

Let’s face it, there might have been no JP Narayan in his time, launching the political careers of the many towards the bottom of the pyramid then, or Anna Hazare now, gaining traction with the Twitter and Facebook generation many decades his junior, without some due cause.

Of course, as the Lokpal debate proceeds, it becomes more and more difficult to fathom how the wondrous creature is going to function, and be effective, even if, and after, a “strong” bill is enacted into law. A polity free of corruption in the Indian context sounds truly fabulous and unreal.

Of course, a desire to make such a thing come about is laudable. And like the activism of civil society amplified by media coverage, is likely to tone up the functioning of not only Government but the Opposition too, and this not just at the Centre but also in the States.  

As for the economy, even bad cooks cannot totally wreck the effect of good ingredients, despite a chronic laparwai insouciance.

(1,099 words)

27^th December 2011

Gautam Mukherjee

Published in The Pioneer on Edit Page as Leader Edit on 29th December 2011 entitled "Wait for the worm to turn". Also online at www.dailypioneer.com and in The Pioneer ePaper. Also archived under Columnists at www.dailypioneer.com