We seem to be facing a heretical form of democracy. Democracy in our country is sick. If we cannot diagnose this fact, we may be ourselves sick and are suffering ideological illness. We have reached an exact opposite of anarchism. Anarchism thinks that we can live without centralized authority. We are actually facing an over centralization of authority. But the kind of authoritarianism that we are facing is heterodox. It is paradoxically, that an authoritarian and centralized leadership has become part of an emancipative lexicon. Are we to imagine this form thinking is leading to singularity that is an anthesis to democracy where even anarchy can be imagined as a democratic singularities where each individual enjoys fullest freedom and democracy?
In a singularity of the form that is shaping up in our country only the authoritarian head enjoys all the freedoms while the general people have to follow the dictat and orders of the that all powerful authority. This is why most critics of the government wish or pray for euthanasia or good death of such a government. While we face the present lok sabha elections, we seem to have come to this wishful prayer for euthanasia with greater urgency. This prayer is a hope for a good death of statism and its power. Statism today has taken up the name of a Hindu Rashtra and it is difficult to discern its difference from it. Hindu Rashtra is a state which does not need democracy. Hence, what we seem to see today is state overpowering democracy. This undermining of democracy is hiding behind the smoking gun of majoritarianism.
It seems that the social contract that established our nation state is dying and a new social contract deemed to be natural to our nation is emerging. Whatever name we may give it, majoritarianism that it promotes intensifies the power of the state which is not great for the health of our democracy. Under such a scenario, democracy becomes a tyranny of the majority. We can ,therefore, never really have true democracy without the minorities. Minorities are not illegitimate to democracy. Democracy of the majority is no democracy. It can only be a kind of authoritarian mechanism of power. Democracy needs diversity to flourish and grow.
We can never reconcile security and freedom. Hence, to secure the freedoms of the majority ,we impose unfreedoms on minorities as well as accept unfreedoms for the majority by making the centralized authority powerful. Only, solace perhaps, the majority has is in the belief that the authoritative leader is tilting on their side. But this myth is also short lived. The centralized state apparatus is hierarchical and only recognizes command and obedience mechanism. It will create dictatorships of the bureaucrats, police, and even religious leaders like the middle ages in Europe. There is no real individual freedom under such regimes. The individual will have to become the crowd, the ‘they self’ or the nation. Such an individual loses his face and becomes faceless.
There is a strange link between market fundamentalism or neo-liberalism and reining Hindutva. They certainly can grow together. They follow similar logic that subsumes everything under them where the weak becomes the fodder to the powerful. In fact, in the mane of freedom, free market destroys freedom so too in the name of freedom for the majority, Hindutva politics eats into the freedoms of the majority as well as minorities. It even subdues our impulse to resist. We have to become slavishly conformist. We are indeed reduced to silent, obedient and domesticated citizens. Unfortunately, this unfreedom is thought as emancipation. It having a religious faith dimension, it ascertains peoples joyful assent. But this myth is also short lived and people’s blind consent begin to appear foolishness.
People had trusted the BJP to give them good days. Unfortunately, the kind of policies that the reigning government produced affected deeply the lives of the ordinary people and benefited only its crony capitalists. We can see that the prayer for the euthanasia/ good death of the reigning government has come closer to fulfilment with declaration of the electoral bonds as illegal by the supreme Court. The quid pro quo that seems to be emerging from it is promising an explosive big bang. Perhaps, the ruling party might pray for a good burial of the entire issue of electoral bonds. But with every passing day , the entire saga of the electoral bonds appears to acquire new vitality and vivacity. The explosive big bang has the power to destroy the Modi government. The electoral bonds may become electoral bombs that may explode on the face of ruling government. The election, therefore, has the power of revenge. This power of revenge was used by the BJP in 2014 to dislodge the Congress government. Now the things have tuned. The power of revenge vote may end up voting out the Modi government. We may have a sweet euthanasia, a self-caused death of itself by the reigning government.