EMOTIONS VS HARD THINKING

LESS EMOTION, MORE HARD THINKING PLEASE

The more we emote the less we think.

Take the Anna Hazare fast unto death .This has been hailed by the media as another Gandhian revolution in the making, as India’s Tahrir Square. This frenzied coverage in turn led to more people —emotions all charged up- rushing to the scene of the crowds---Jantar Mantar in Delhi and other locations elsewhere in India. The media then looks at the crowd and screams that ‘millions of people across the country’ are ‘ spontaneously rushing and showing their support for Anna’. A clear case of media overkill—something that will wane once the IPL takes off.

LESS EMOTION, MORE HARD THINKING PLEASE

What do the crowds want in brief ?That the government ‘immediately’ agree to notify the constitution of the committee, that the government ‘ immediately’ agree to co-opting civil society members as ‘ laid down’ by Hazare, that the Lok Pal Bill be passed in the ‘immediate’ monsoon session of Parliament , that the contours of the Lok Pal be as ‘laid down ’ by Hazere and his band of people . Now all this dictation reminds me of the middle class admiration for authoritarian rule. I have heard it said any number of times over the decades that ‘ we need a dictator’ to run this country. The subliminal admiration for the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi remains till this day because after all during that period ‘ the trains ran on time and clerks came to office punctually’ .When I summon the ‘temerity’ to tell these people that Emergency was undemocratic , that poor people were compulsorily sterilised by officials, that slums were summarily destroyed ,leaving the poor overnight homeless in the cold weather in North India —well I get scornful looks. Directing the attention of the votaries of the emergency—chiefly the middle class— to its impact on the poor has served to make me unpopular !

Few of us stop to think about Irom Sharmila who has been on hunger strike against the unbridled powers of the Armed Forces in some north Eastern states –powers that the Indian Government dare not apply in areas that have large middle classes and active national media for obvious reasons .This class is self centered and refuses to be moved by causes that do not directly affect it. The North East of India is beyond its frame of reference. On some issues even what is not in the Mumbai- NCR region is not in its purview.

What I am saying is that our educated people tend to be myopic.

I am afraid the upsurge of support for the kind of ideology proffered by Anna Hazare is indicative of our naivete .We are victims of an all too human failure—the tendency to allow emotion to overwhelm us, and to over simplify a complex issue in an attempt to make sense of a difficult subject.No doubt we are expressing our deep rooted frustration at the wide spread corruption . A reader [ who I can assure you is a brilliant mind] responded to my views with the following stirring words

Frankly

I dont care if they succeed or not

I dont care if tomorrow a crook might sit in the Lokpal( as if otherwise wise men and honest ,pure ones have manned anything till date)

I dont care if there is no precedence

I dont care if it is all jingoism blah blah

All I do care is that a 73 year old man showed through his own action of the power to wake up a hiding- behind- fear nation; to remind them of the power vested in them by wise men many years ago;to wipe out for a few moments the divide in social strata ;and powerful leadership in getting people out of their cocoons;

It is never going to be easy to be so blatant any more

Read the paper today-government guys are running for cover-mmmm...what do you know?where the spillover can happen .....

that is what it was all about ..the shifting of the fear from my feet to the other feet.....

There is an irony in these words. Unless we’ care’ and are very careful we many end up with a failure that can only leave us with the only other option—Maoism.We have to ‘care’ that we succeed .That will demand that we think hard .There is no scope for authoritarianism even of the Hazare noble kind. Frankly a reading of the Jan Lok Pal bill as drafted by Hazare’s group scares me .Please read it. And give it a thought.

K.R.RAVI

P.S A reader alleged that I was perhaps never forced to give a bribe Hence my ‘silly’ thinking on this subject .I am afraid this is also naivete .