Claiming The Public Space

The recent jan andolan —a massive populist social mobilisation against corruption —led by Anna Hazare, succeeded in getting Parliament, in principle, to accept the key demands of the movement through a unanimous affirmation, which not only underlines the historicity of the moment, but could also potentially help redistribute power in the political field.

Whether or not we get an effective law enacted by Parliament, it seems certain that in some measure this movement has redefined the fundamentals of Indian democracy and calls for a larger debate on democracy. As the noted constitutional jurist Fali S. Nariman pointed out recently, while it is true that "we, the people" choose our MPs and MLAs to represent us in legislatures through periodical elections, the MPs (or MLAs) cannot say that once they have been elected, the people can have no say over them till the next election. As he pointed out, it is 'We the People' who gave ourselves the Constitution and the Parliament, a position that was summed by rightly by the Hindu in a recent editorial:

In appraising what has happened over the past fortnight, a red herring needs to be got out of the way — the idea of the ‘supremacy of Parliament' versus everyone who comes up against it. Parliamentarians who assert this need to learn their Constitution. In India, unlike Britain, Parliament is not supreme; the Constitution is. Nor is law-making “the sole prerogative” of Parliament.

The people explored and found an avenue to get their voices heard in the legislative process. This could potentially give rise to a mechanism for a dialogue between the civil society and the political class, which, while working within the constitutional framework that gives Parliament (or state legislatures) the exclusive right to make laws, also gives the citizens the right to assemble, raise issues and engage in peaceful protests. Such a mechanism could be a way to move from the idealism of civil society to the pragmatic realities of parliamentary democracy.

Some commentators, including a few parliamentarians, have suggested that this movement has set a dangerous precedent for Indian democracy. They have questioned the use of fasts and Satyagraha, even though it is a well-established praxis in the culture of protest of the country. Additionally, in contrast to the approach adopted by the Maoists, the path adopted by India Against Corruption (IAC) is not only civil, but also rational. Nevertheless, many have expressed the fear that jan andolans like the one led by Anna Hazare and the tactics of fasting used by the movement is a form of blackmail.

The critics after praising Anna Hazare for bringing corruption on the top of public and government’s agenda, have questioned his “satyagraha” and repeatedly drawn our attention to Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar’s often-quoted observation, in a famous speech while discussing the draft constitution in 1949, that future satyagrahas would lead to the unfolding of a “grammar of anarchy”

“If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”

We must of course take Dr Ambedkar's injunctions in the context of his frustrations in dealing with Gandhi's intransigence and his various fasts — the one preceding the Poona Pact which pitted him against Ambedkar himself and of course the last one in Independent India in 1948. The crucial element in Dr Ambedkar’s logic here is that Gandhian political praxis of “satyagraha” can not be justified when “constitutional methods” are open for achieving public good. But the question to ask here is: what if they are not? And, what if the "constitutional methods" themselves have been subverted by none other than their custodians? What if the "grammar of politics" is vitiated?

Dr Ambedkar and the other framers of the constitution could possibly not have never imagined how the quality of the political class in India would degenerate in the years to come, especially when compared to the great men and women who fought for the country’s Independence. If framers of the constitution had known how the constitutional methods could be hijacked by the use of money and muscle in politics — Cash for Votes is just one example —there is no reason to doubt that they would themselves have created a constitutional authority to deal with corruption similar to the Election Commission (EC) or the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

For more than four decades, all efforts to bring a meaningful law to fight corruption and criminalisation of politics have been frustrated by a certain section in the political class, bureaucracy, and big corporations. We need to see the massive social mobilization led by Anna Hazare, which gripped urban India, as an effort by the civil society to claim the public space and to "open" more constitutional avenues.

Apart from "constitutionalist" objections, there are also some well-meaning critics of Anna Hazare who do not want to upset the social order and rock the fragile boat of Indian democracy. They argue that economic growth must come first and nothing must be done that could distract us from the path of liberalization; they appear to firmly belief in the trickle down theory of economic growth. However, the flip side is that corruption is not only holding back the country from achieving a much more equitable development and higher growth, but is also dehumanising large segments of the population on a daily basis.

When the "constitutional methods" are subverted and closed to reform, as we have seen with the Lokpal legislation, which has been languishing in the Parliament for the last four decades, the only hope for concerned citizenry is to engage in a non-party political process such as the “staging” of a jan andolan. One of the ways to understand jan andolans, such as this one led by Anna Hazare, is to see it as a massive populist social mobilization that creatively opens the opportunity for a non-party political process by temporarily claiming the public space. Such a public space is an alternative space outside the institutional democratic space of Parliament. Moreover, because jan andolans, unlike political parties, lack institutional means to communicate with the state, they have to rely on the fourth estate of democracy, viz. news media to get their voices heard in the corridors of power.

Here, the role of the news media is not only to amplify the voice of the people and construct a large-scale social integration, but also legitimise or delegitimise an effort by civil society groups to claim this public space. As Arvind Kejriwal pointed out in a recent interview to the Hindu: "... the media cannot create a moment. They can at best magnify it." When asked if it was not a setting a worrying precedent, and an analogy was drawn with the Ram Rath yatra, where too, the BJP had argued that people were angry because the mandir had not been built for 40 years, Kejriwal said:

The two situations are not comparable. One was communal and divisive and went against the grain of the Constitution. We are not asking for anything illegal. Our demands resonate with the people and our movement has been unifying, non-violent and entirely within rights given by the Constitution. What is wrong if people demand a strong law against corruption? What is wrong if they ask for the Jan Lokpal Bill?

Another example quoted repeatedly is that of Irom Sharmila’s protest and the relative less play it gets in the media, and why the national television media has not chosen to amplify her demand for repeal of AFSPA. There are bound to be a complex number of reasons, which would hopefully begin to attract more attention thanks to recent media efforts, but one of the reasons Sharmila's protest has not been able to mobilise a large campaign is because unfortunately her demand does not find resonance across the length and breadth of India. The demand, while legitimate, is too specific and resonates specifically in those geographical areas where AFSPA applies. On the other hand, in the case of Anna Hazare the media gave a stamp of approval to the core sentiments expressed by the people at the protests as it could perhaps see that the protests were wide-ranging, cutting across the usual divides.

Clearly, the news media played an important part in the process of mediation. Television's reach also gave it more than usual power to construct reality, frame issues and set the agenda. Nevertheless, in the context of a highly diverse and free news media, such as we have in India, there is always space for diversity of perspectives, which is exactly what was played out in the discourse on Anna Hazare and the inherent populist character of the andolan.

Despite all the good intentions and valid issues, I think we also must recognize that such a jan andolan cannot but be a populist movement. To attract support from a wide social base a jan andolan has to articulate successfully the central demand in a manner that it reflects the sentiments of differential social groups who come together as a public or a "jan" around that central issue. To achieve this the jan andolan with the help from the news media simplifies the complex issues and projects symbols and metaphors that make it a populist movement. Take what Kejriwal said in his interview to the Hindu:

A movement cannot be created out of nothing. In this case, anger against corruption was at the point of eruption. Then two things happened. One, instead of merely echoing the anger, the Jan Lokpal Bill (JLB) offered a solution. Second, Anna emerged as a credible leader at a time of huge leadership crisis in politics. See, people did not understand the details of the JBL. They simply saw it as a “dawai” [medicine] for corruption. It is the combination of a solution and a figure like Anna — who lived in a temple with no assets — that clicked.

Populism is not necessarily a negative thing— rather it is a form of discursive political praxis that constructs a public or a jan through the articulation of a populist demand or sentiment through key symbols and metaphors. For example, in the case of the IAC, various nationalist slogans and symbols were used. I would like to emphasize here that I am carefully suggesting “a public”, as in any democratic society there are multiple publics or "jan"s. Additionally, all publics at least constitute a plurality, if not a majority, that includes differential social groups. For example, in the Ramlila Ground and in other places in the country, protesters from differential social groups were present who represented a strong plurality of the people.

Recognizing the populist character of any jan andolan, including the movement led by IAC, and the fact that there are multiple publics only goes to show that however popular a demand may be, it is never universal. This brings us back to the essential strength of a parliamentary liberal democracy that has safeguards against forcing a maximalist position. In the end, when the voices raised in the public space reach the corridors of power, with the help of news media, it is time to engage in a dialogue and consultation to arrive at a negotiated consensus position on the issue or issues that are at the heart of the social logic operating within a jan andolan. And this is precisely what happened when Parliament finally heard the voice of the people and passed a resolution resonating the sentiments of the jan andolan against corruption, thus finally reaching out to the non-party political process.

From time to time jan andolans are needed to restore the distribution of power in the political field for sake equity and balance. For example, the movement against emergency in 1975 ended the overreach by the then hegemonic Congress party led by Indira Gandhi and the Parliament that was willing to be subservient to one person’s vision. Moreover, it also opened the opportunity for the underprivileged populations to share the political space, which we saw finally culminated in the social justice agenda of the Mandal Commission. However, on a cautionary note, we also need to recognize that the social ferment of the 1970s and 1980s also gave rise to reactionary forces of Hindutva, which should make us reflect and beware of similar elements within the movement led by IAC.

Finally, coming back to this view that jan andolans’ primary goal is to claim the public space as an alternate democratic praxis and alternate politics, I would argue that it strengthens India’s constitutional democracy rather than weakening it. With respect to the fear of the unfolding of a “grammar of anarchy,” I would like to once again submit that in a democracy, there has to a space for jan andolans to voice public sentiment, when the constitutional methods are hijacked by a dominant segment of the political class which is steeped in corruption. However, both the Parliament, which occupies the democratic institutional space, and a jan andolan, which temporarily claims the public space, have to recognize the limits of overreach.

Dr Anup Kumar teaches at the School of Communication, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, 44115, USA