Global Village Idiot: A time for rediscovery, understanding and constant change

There is a season for everything, a time to every purpose. This time that we are living in, is a time of constant change, a season of upheaval. The world is changing. As is the country

I am sitting here at my desk on a regular Thursday and for once I have left the writing to the day before publication. There is good reason.

You know what leads to change? Constant, everyday struggle in the direction of the desired change. And that’s what politics is all about. Constant, every day action. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO)

Am listening to a cover of Turn! Turn! Turn! and it somehow seems just the right song for this moment, this day, this month, this year. The song was written in the 1950s by American folk artist Pete Seeger (most of the lyrics are from the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes). I grew up listening to the 1965 cover by American folk-rock band, The Byrds. Today am listening to the version by the iconic Australian band, The Seekers.

Meanwhile, media, social media and many of my friends and family are frantically following the assembly election results from different states. (So am I). Am also keeping an eye on the Women’s ODI World Cup match where India is playing New Zealand. I am a fan of the Indian women’s cricket team and I hope to see Mithali Raj and the team do well.

I woke up early this morning, around 5.30 am, and started work since I knew it would be an eventful day. At around 10, I looked into the Election Commission of India portal to see what the result trends are in UP, Goa, Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand. The Aam Aadmi Party seems to be running away with the election in Punjab, kind of a clear report card for the incumbent parties in the state and at the centre.

I do not have political convictions by any stretch of imagination. I don’t have a left, right, centre, left of centre or centre of right … or any leanings at all. As a rule, I do not discuss religion and politics with anyone because both are deeply individual in nature and also deeply collective and the fissures in thought run deeper than the superficial bond of relationships in the digital age.

I have always been tormented by questions of ethics and morals and justice and therefore fascinated by political philosophies. As a lifelong student of history, political science, and psychology (in that order) it has been a perplexing learning journey so far.

BJP has displayed phenomenal performance in UP, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, contrary to the hopes and convictions of the more leftist, centrist, liberal minded in my network. I have never understood what a liberal or centrist is supposed to be. From my observations, anybody who has a political conviction is an aggressive exclusionist when it comes to people who do not have views similar to their own.

The thing about political convictions is that they rarely match. In the sense that citizens have political convictions that have nothing to do with the convictions of politicians. If we take a leaf out of a western theoretical perspective (Max Weber to be precise), politicians can be driven by ethics of conviction or ethics of responsibility or some combination of both. Ethics of conviction are about morality or just motivation and focused on the path or action and not its outcome; ethics of responsibility is about the outcome, the consequences of actions.

In the Russia-Ukraine conflict while everyone is questioning the rightness or wrongness of war, no one seems to be questioning which of these sides is driven by what kind of ethics. I have been wondering what kind of ethics the leaders of Europe and America are driven by since they seem to be central to the conflict that the people of Russia and Ukraine have to play out. What is the ethics of democracy and what is the ethics of socialism or communism? Do the people of nations really understand the ethics they passionately back and fight for?

It’s a bit more complicated in India. There are people who have convictions based on a rudimentary understanding of political philosophy and much of the visible opinion in mainstream English media is based on the morality espoused by Europe and the US. Contrary to this, most political parties are rooted in Indian political philosophy that is very different from western thought. Most English educated citizens are relatively unaware of Indian political ethics which come from ancient works (Manu, Kautilya, Shukracharya, among others) and from the codification of philosophy in the epics (Ramayan and Mahabharat) and the Bhagvad Gita. Dismissing or ignoring these political philosophies due to a narrow interpretation of a democratic outlook is not just perilous to one’s understanding of cultural realities, but also a disservice to the democratic principle of plurality of opinion.

Ethics themselves are the face of a value system. Judging an ethic through the lens of a different ethic is like punishing one value system according to the laws of another. In the short term this leads to upheaval in society; in the medium term it leads to conflict; in the long-term it always leads to change.

The political ethics status quo in India changed three decades ago; the masses in India speak the same philosophical language as the political classes and are capable of shaking off lethargy. If I don’t know the history of the region or the state that I live in, I won’t understand the changes that are happening now. If I do not understand the concept of dharm (dharma) I cannot understand the consequences that follow when one takes an individual notion of choice in Indian society. Thoughts may lead to actions. Actions have consequences. Consequences lead to further thoughts and actions and consequences. For instance, criticism while being an element of democracy, is not free speech. And even free speech has a consequence and one cannot cry about the consequences of one’s expression if we did not weigh the consequences beforehand.

For close to four decades now, I have watched people protest for many different reasons: for reservations, against reservations; for and against government, against crimes, against criminals, against policies, against politicians, for religions, for religious leaders … And I have come to understand that people think protest is an instrument of democracy, that it is an effective weapon to get what you want, for one to affect change.

I beg to differ.

Isolated protest is not tangible action in a democracy. It is a positioning statement, and lately, a trend. But I don’t believe it leads to change, or an improvement of the situation, or justice in the long-run. It takes a little bit more than banner-waving, candlelight vigils, and signing petitions to achieve change.

You know what leads to change? Constant, everyday struggle in the direction of the desired change. And that’s what politics is all about. Constant, every day action.

But while we struggle, it is also important to improve our knowledge about the political and cultural evolution of India across thousands of years. It is essential to be able to evaluate whether immediate concerns about joblessness, religious differences, individual rights, social freedom, and economic backwardness will overshadow the deep-rooted existential concerns related to safety and security as a people.

It will matter that AAP won Punjab because it demonstrates that democracy is robust in India and that contrary to fear-mongers, when people want change, they vote for change. If UP votes the BJP back to power, one must also respect that.

As the song alludes, there is a season for everything, a time to every purpose. This time that we are living in, is a time of constant change, a season of upheaval. The world is changing. As is the country.

Mukherjee, author, learning-tech designer and management consultant, is founder of Mountain Walker and chief strategy advisor, Peak Pacific. He can be reached @ thebengali@icloud.com