The Importance of the Drummer Boy

The Importance of the Drummer Boy

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith

Senior economic affairs journalist Gautam Chikermane has coined a slogan “Mera Bharat, Ameer Bharat”, in easy to understand convent-educated Hindi. He wants the political classes to consider embracing it in the run up to general elections slated for 2014. The thrust of the accompanying article is inspiringly positive. Mr. Chikermane writes, “To mess with this generation because of a political focus or policies that belong to the past is foolhardiness”.

Mr. Chikermane suggests that refusing to improve the economic lot of our young citizens, given our demographics, will result in more and more industrial and civil unrest, and give further teeth and traction to the subversive and extremist movements plaguing this country.

The curious use of Bharat for India or vice versa is usually loaded to distinguish between urban and rural realities. But Chikermane’s slogan seems to have taken inspiration from, innocently enough, the much lauded “Mera Bharat Mahaan” campaign of a few years ago, developed by some of the finest advertising professionals in this country.

Another remarkable article has been published by young Mr. Prayag Akbar. Prayag questions the insertion of “Secular” and “Socialist” into the Preamble to the Indian Constitution by Mrs. Indira Gandhi during the Emergency.

Akbar suggests that the first term has been wrongly used, over the subsequent years, to tar the BJP, Shiv Sena and other political parties which profess a Hindutva focus with the unfair taint of Communalism. This is because “Secular” has been twisted to mean an exaggerated bias towards the minorities.

Much of the liberal-Hindu world view and large sections of the media are embarrassed to profess majoritarian views. This does not trouble Anglican England or Catholic France but we seem to be hoisted on our own petard.

Even liberal and educated Muslims belonging to the upper strata of Indian Society, says Akbar, are similarly put under pressure to defend any inclusive or universal views they may wish to uphold. To paraphrase the gist of Akbar’s argument here, he writes that by oft repetition, like the Goebbelsian lie, Secularism has been subverted to take on a narrow prism meaning rather than its original purpose- to seek a separation of Church and State.

That the policy twist to our desi version of Secularism is now coming home to roost is evident in Congress ruled Assam and in the increasing polarisation of caste, sub-caste, religious and regional interests. It is doubly aggravated, of course, by illegal migration from Bangladesh which is visible not only in Assam but all over the country.  That Pakistan and its trouble fomenting affiliates in India and Bangladesh should exploit this situation seems entirely logical from their point of view.

Pakistan was, after all, set up as an Islamic State on the premise and presumption that the Muslim was not going to be treated fairly in Hindustan. Consequently, it has never bothered with the niceties of “Secularism” in any format whatsoever, even when their quasi-secularist and founder Mr. M.A. Jinnah was alive. It is currently busy fighting its own Islamic extremists and driving out the smidgens of minority populations left over there. But the real aggravation to the Pakistani psyche must come from the realisation that not only is India much more of a nation, despite its slack ways and stupendous ethnic and religious diversity, but it is also a happy home and hearth to many more Muslims than exist in the whole of Pakistan!

We may not be an ideal country for any of our people, but we are not deliberately living a lie and compounding it every day by our actions. But many across the border must be wondering what it is that their nation stands for after all. Has it become a no holds barred rogue state on its way to self-destruction? Or is Pakistan going to be subsumed by its own extremist elements to wage perpetual war on the rest of the world including against Muslims that don’t conform to its dictates?

As for the bestial urge towards ethnic cleansing, it does seem to go with the extremist ethos, by no means confined to the Islamic terrorist.  Still, Indian Kashmir, without ostensible provocation from Pakistan held Kashmir or Pakistan, also did not hesitate to kick out the Pandits and take over their property in an act of brutal majoritarianism.

India/Bharat/Hindustan as a State did nothing to defend their Pandits. This despite the first Prime Minister of India and national icon Jawaharlal Nehru being a Kashmiri Pandit himself.

Perhaps the Pandits do not belong to the right kind of minority for our “secularists”. Nor can such secularists countenance punishing the “real” minorities for their sins against the majority community, even if it happens to be a persecuted minority in Kashmir.

And “Socialist”, as a fused guiding light inserted into the Indian Constitution seems, to Mr. Akbar, as it does to many others, to be a subversion of the original intent of the Constituent Assembly. All it wanted was for the new nation to be a “Sovereign Democratic Republic”, without any other political prescription to act as a constraint or straightjacket.

Mr. Chikermane’s call to pursue riches, in order to, as President John Fitzgerald Kennedy put it once, “to lift all boats”; runs up on the shoals of our self-imposed “Socialism”.

It is this out-dated political ideology that is still being clung to by the current powers that be for its supposed electoral dividends. The latest inspiration to emanate from such quarters was a bizarre idea to provide millions of poor people free mobile telephones. Unfortunately for the intended beneficiaries, the Finance Ministry has indicated its inability to fund the enterprise.

In the full frontal assaults of 18^th century warfare, there were conch shell blowers, buglers, fife players, bagpipers, and drummers to sound preparatory alerts and execution signals to infantry going into battle. These brave worthies played on during the battle to boost troop morale and consequently carried no weapons.

Perhaps we need to salute the contribution of all those who issue such clarion calls and refuse to take the current state of affairs as our manifest and immutable destiny.

Drummers, in a sense, who are eager to change things using, not the power of office, but the inspiration of their ideas. If we must remember Karl Marx ad nauseam therefore, let us also reflect on the ideas of  Wealth of Nations writer Adam Smith to guide our future.

(1,103 words)

August 21^st, 2012

Gautam Mukherjee

Published as Leader on Edit Page of The Pioneer on 23rd August 2012  as "The drummer boy keeps us aroused". Also online at www.dailypioneer.com