Author: Subhash Kak
Publication: rediff.com
Date: December 27, 2005
URL: http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/27kak.htm
The supposedly liberal values that are the
driving force behind politics in India -- especially of the United Progressive
Alliance government -- are shrinking the public space for autonomy and free
association.
The road to hell and to serfdom is paved with
good intentions and great slogans. The 104th Constitution Amendment Bill,
passed almost unanimously, ostensibly to help the underprivileged, will end
up effectively bringing under the control of the government bureaucracy a
major portion of the private education sector.
Rather than open more schools and increase
the investment in education, the government wants to micromanage private schools.
Educational institutions, whether they receive
aid from the government or not, so long as they are supposedly run by those
who belong to the 'majority,' will have to set aside half of the seats for
people from certain communities.
Watching over their shoulders will be the
Big Brother, and one presumes if the ethnic background of students does not
satisfy the bureaucrats, the schools would be shut down!
This is an assault on the principles of private
initiative and voluntary association. The government is insisting that association
even in the privacy of one's own property is disallowed unless this association
includes members of certain groups.
This Amendment also contravenes one of the
founding principles of any democracy, that all citizens be treated on the
same basis. It creates two classes of citizens: minority and non-minority.
The right of voluntary association is maintained for the minority, and denied
to the non-minority.
The famous poem by Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)
about accumulation of State power by the targeting of specific groups one
at a time captures the slippery slope of the law very well:
First they came for the Communists, and I
did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not
a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out because I
was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Amendment 104 should be seen as further march
of a polity that has nationalized temples, taking away the right of free religious
expression. It requires legislators to vote as the leader commands, under
pain of expulsion if they refuse.
The liberals and leftists in the Indian polity,
who have pushed this constitutional amendment, are in the mold of the 19th
century liberals like John Stuart Mill, who spoke of tolerance and the rule
of law, but were ardent supporters of European colonization. Mill believed
that India like other 'barbarous' nations had 'not got beyond the period during
which it is likely to be to their benefit that they should be conquered and
held in subjection by foreigners.'
The liberals' embrace of universal human liberty
contained a Eurocentric and potentially racist view of what society should
be like, and communism was born out of this impulse. It is a strange irony
that the only ones holding on to this Eurocentric program are the Indian Marxists
and liberals.
There is no space for libertarians in Indian
polity: no one speaks for the rights to privacy and voluntary association.
But guarantee of such privacy is essential in the development of a knowledge
society that is to be internationally competitive. Both the Left and the Right
have used euphemisms such as 'social control' to increase the power of the
State.
The more things change, the more they stay
the same. The Indian political system seems to be becoming more and more like
the mansabdar system of the Mughals. Then the emperor granted revenue rights
to a mansabdar in exchange for promises of soldiers in war-time. Now the leader
grants tickets and money to run for political office in exchange for unconditional
support later. The mansab was both revocable and non-hereditary exactly like
the parliament seat now.
This is the only explanation why there was
no real opposition to the passage of the Amendment in both the Lok and Rajya
Sabhas, why no one brought up Constitutional questions related to individual
freedom and privacy.
If there is a law that needs to be resisted,
it is this one.
