Exercises in fraternal bonding and citizen vigilance

Wise men tell us that refusal to take responsibility, intemperance, and the use of foul language are signs of a decadent mind. The central message emerging from our greatest epic, Mahabharata, is that the use of deceit and power to rob the weak and the rightful people of their honour and possession, and the failure on the part of those who have been entrusted with the governance and welfare of society to rise above their self-interest, bring justice to the wronged, and act in the interest of the common good, are signs of decadent times; these call for enlightened and righteous action for societal regeneration and renewal.

How are we grappling with the difficult times we are living in?

The last few weeks have seen an attempt by opposition parties to unite against the BJP, a setback to Opposition unity by the farce of the recent political drama in Maharashtra, and the misplaced urgency to push through a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), the debate inevitably becoming a “for or against the UCC”.

While the task of electorally challenging the BJP falls on the opposition parties, their ability to rise above pettiness to forge a united front and weave a counter-narrative to the politics of Hindutva, it is worthwhile to consider attempts by a vigilant citizenry in the recent past to counter creeping authoritarianism, and the gains from those attempts.

Three exercises in vigilance through fraternal solidarity in the last five years stand out as valiant attempts at countering the cultural project of majoritarian nationalism that is against our civilisational traits of diversity, pluralism, synthesis, dissent, and coexistence of multiple faiths.

The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, the farmers' protest of 2020-21, and Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) tried to awaken the conscience of our society and seek accountability from an increasingly authoritarian State. Significantly, the first two had their origins in civil society initiatives. This also explains the urgency with which the government made a bid to undermine civil society in 2021.

The beginning of 2020 saw spontaneous and sporadic protests in India, triggered by the CAA and the threat of a nation-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise.

Students and women were at the forefront of these protests. The CAA sanctified religion as a basis for granting citizenship. This went against the spirit of the Constitution and mounted a frontal attack on the secular nature of the Indian State. The protesters deemed CAA to be discriminatory on the grounds of religion, and thus against the ethos of Indian civilisation and society, unjust, and a weapon of divisive politics. While the CAA provided the immediate trigger, deeper causes lay in the total disregard shown for constitutional morality, erosion of values in public life, intolerance of dissent, and the increasing use of religion for electoral gains.

The anti-CAA protests were unprecedented in scale and intensity in India’s recent past. It reinvigorated the culture of protest on the lines of Gandhian morality and methods, reaffirmed faith in the idea of secularism, popularised constitutional values, and aimed at redeeming our civilisational values of humanism, syncretism, and inclusivity. The Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown in March 2020 brought about an abrupt end to the protests. The anti-CAA protests may arguably be considered the first attempt by a vigilant citizenry to stem the tide of democratic decline in India.

If 2020 began with anti-CAA protests, it ended with farmers up in arms against the farm law ordinances, which the government passed into law without consultation with stakeholders and with little discussion in parliament. Incensed that the new farm laws would further corporate and business interests and would push them into a disadvantageous position, farmers from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh started assembling on the borders of Delhi by the end of November; they set up make-shift shelters at different locations on the Delhi border to protest the new laws.

Soon, the government was forced into negotiations. In the face of a deadlock and amidst the government's tactics, ranging from the use of repressive measures to attempts to delegitimize the protests by calling them names, the farmers continued with their protest. Braving all kinds of adversities and the extremities of Delhi's climate through winter and summer, the protesters remained steadfast in their demands. Finally, the government had to relent and the laws were repealed in November 2021.

The farmers camping on the Delhi border got support from farmers across the country. Barring a few unfortunate incidents, the protests remained peaceful and non-violent. Some observers have called the farmers’ protest the “largest and longest peasants’ struggle in the history of modern India”. The most important message from the farmers’ victory is that in a democracy, decision-making and public policy have to be a function of deliberative and consultative processes rather than solely of State power.

In several decades, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra was perhaps the first attempt by any leader of a political party to galvanise people from different parts of the country into a movement. Gandhi urged people to rise above narrow interests of caste, creed, and region and come together on a common platform to reforge the fraternal bond around the commonality of Indianness.

While his detractors tried to dismiss BJY as a desperate bid by a failed leader to stay relevant, Rahul Gandhi succeeded in appealing to the social conscience of a large number of Indians and emerged as a leader in his own right. With all its limitations, BJY succeeded in stirring the conscience of a society caught in the grip of narratives of hate and polarisation.

These three exercises represent public action to seek accountability from the State and attempts at dispelling the ominous clouds of darkness that seem to be engulfing our collective social existence of late; they also bring home to us the point that eternal vigilance of the citizenry is the price that a society has to pay to keep our democracy and our liberties.

While the immediate task is to counter the hegemonic politics of Hindutva in the 2024 elections, the long-term struggle is to reclaim the broad consensus reached about the nature of Indian civilisation and society during the freedom movement and reaffirm our faith in the ethos that went into the making of our Constitution and the modern Indian nation.

(The writer is with Flame University)