Sunday Posts

The role of social elite within a democratic society is usually resented, because of the republican ideals. It is a problematic concept, as most of those elites in our societies come down from the landed families of the past, except in societies which may have gone through a revolution, like China. The elite is a throwback from the past, a reminder of the past tyrannies and oppression, and worse, their very existence is a symbol of failure of the republican ideals.  However, on the other side, there is this claim, empirically proven through experiences across countries and generations, that an elite class is needed for social order. Even the revolutionary societies in Russia and China had developed their own, replacing the Birth privileges with bureaucratic privileges, but nonetheless maintaining the asymmetry of power and access. In fact, the entire Bolshevik doctrine had, at its heart, a revolutionary elite, that will lead the masses to emancipation.  The American ...

As I wrote the earlier post declaring my intent to study Gandhi's life and death, contending that it is indeed a very 'Indian' life and death, I presumed that Gandhi mattered. It may seem too obvious a statement, but it is not the 'Father of the Nation' stature that we need to be talking about. In fact, this, and the vast cottage industry that sprung up on Gandhi iconography, can be seen in direct contrast to what the man stood for and what he wanted to achieve. We may celebrate Independent India as the great achievement of Gandhi, but there are reasons to consider this to be his great failure, though his legacy lived on.  It was a great mystery to everyone how India became democratic from the start. Most people were dismissive about Nehru's plans to offer everyone a vote even before that happened in the United States, and predicted chaos. Political Scientists, accustomed to the vaunted correlation between per capita income and democracy, could never fit i...

One of the great contrasts between India, the world's most populous democracy, and America, one of the oldest surviving republics, is the differing approach what, paraphrasing the Founding generation (of United States), should be called the "Fear of the Caesar"! The American approach to this is perhaps best captured in the story of Benjamin Franklin. When a reporter asked, "Mr Franklin, what did we get - a Monarchy or a Republic?", while he was coming out of one of the meetings of the Constitutional Convention,  Franklin reportedly answered, "A republic, if you can keep it!" That fear of a Caeser, a strong leader who would undermined the republic, persisted. Another story, later recounted by Jefferson (told to Benjamin Rush in 1811), described a dinner that Jefferson hosted for John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Three portraits adorned Jefferson's room, and Hamilton reportedly inquired who those were. Jefferson said they were of the three...

Some time back, on the eve of the 2014 General Elections in India, I wrote about the Indian Republic (see Resurrecting The Republic ) as perhaps the greatest achievement of India, and hoped that the Indian electorate would vote sensibly to protect it. I argued then that handing out the Hindu Nationalists a mandate may endanger whatever we have achieved so far. I feared that we might have taken the Republic and the democracy for granted and might, therefore, stand to lose it. A few months on, the Hindu Nationalist take-over has happened, with some predictable outcomes. The development talk continues to dominate the agenda, with the government making tall proclamations while back-pedaling on the old ones. The greatest achievement of the new government so far has been a slew of development friendly ordinances, ten in eight months in office, which they have adopted without reference to the Parliament. So far, there was not much of economic good news, except the Bombay Stock Exchange ...

Now that BJP manifesto is out, it is interesting to read and compare the manifestos published by two leading parties on the issue of Higher Education. Admittedly, this is only a minor issue in this election. This election is, as I have written about before, more about the idea of India and how the republic will be shaped. Minds are focused on bigger issues of identity, and should be. Trying to deconstruct manifesto approaches on one issue or the other is surely inconsequential in the face of what's at stake. Besides, parties hardly keep manifesto promises, and BJP almost did not have a manifesto ('Modi is the manifesto', someone said in jest, but got it right). Besides, if Manifestos are inconsequential, Higher Education is inconsequential among other issues addressed in the manifestos. Indeed, there are bigger issues and clear themes that cut across these manifestos, and dare I say that there are clear ideological undertones. Congress seems to be saying 'yout...

Next week, the electioneering in India will start. It is set up like any other election: With parties lined up on either side, politicians trying to get maximum advantage, money being spent like water, with the noise, promises, processions and frustrations like the other times. But this is not like any other election. There is an existential threat to the Indian Republic and what it stands for. This is no exaggeration. The leading candidate, though by no means certain, is a man with an agenda: Narendra Modi is trying to convince Indians that he will bring the development that Indians crave for, and will run a corruption free administration. But he has an ugly record of abetting a genocidal riot in Gujrat back in 2002, and he and his apologists are trying to see that it does not matter. In fact, in a shocking TV interview, Lord Bhikhu Parekh, the champion of multiculturalism in Britain, was trying to argue Mr Modi's case saying that we should not be talking about the past and ...