Is Modi's development plan only about imposing bans?
When chauvinism of any kind becomes the hallmark of the actions or intentions of a group or an individual, it comes as no surprise if every action of that individual or group, including some with the best of intentions, are viewed with suspicion by those watching.
Those manning the various portfolios of the current government know fully well, as anybody else does, that many of its members have from time to time found themselves accused of displaying various forms of chauvinism — religious, linguistic, cultural or even the most common of them all, gender.
The self-appointed or even those commonly perceived “intellectuals” (no disrespect intended) may have been horizontally split in assessing the situation arising out of the recent ban on pornographic websites, the mass mind of India seems to have been unanimous in banning the ban loud and clear. In a democracy, numbers do matter. No one would value the truth of this statement more emphatically than the current government which has created history by riding to power backed by unprecedented numbers.
And while many may be quick in disputing the claims that a thing as trifle and “base” as porn could shake the highest columns of power to its foundations, the government has displayed its respect for numbers in a democracy (perhaps for the first time so visibly and quickly during its year-old tenure) as tactfully as it has been tactless (allegedly) in issuing the ban on one of the most popular ways in which India satiates one of its basic instincts without creating a noise about it. It would be naïve to summarise that the government’s change of mood to modify the carpet ban on pornographic websites to child pornographic content is just an act of god.
For a government that has had a joyride so far in effecting bans after bans since assuming power, what really went wrong this time?
The bitter truth for the ban-happy government is that a ban is not a very tactful weapon of choice to govern. In a democracy, unpopularity may end up as the knell for those in power and bans generate instant unpopularity, as instantly as the powers that be issue their fatwas. So from a citizen’s perspective, a ban too, like any other government order, needs to find some acceptable hands. Intellectuals may crib to differ. Forget the intellectuals for once, the common people are the ones who vote a party to power. The “intellectuals” at any rate neither vote for the BJP nor could they save the day for the UPA. A government in a democracy is proverbially “for the people” and not for any demographically selective group of people, but for people forming the entire range of demography of a nation. Of course a please-all policy is impossible and therefore we have a system of heeding to the majority in a democracy.However, pleasing the majority is probably one area where this government would score big points. But that is where the current government has probably botched up with a basic fact: the fact is, it has failed to differentiate between party whims and government responsibilities and that is precisely where the question of suspicion on the count of chauvinism marches in.
Narendra Modi’s supporters may dispute it as they always have, but the man himself knows that as the prime minister of India, his actions must expunge the memory of his Gujarat infamy from the minds of the people. A politician commands the minds of the people through his image. The courts of law have the sole power to pronounce a person guilty or acquit him; but guilty or not, no court can build the person's image nor craft the perception people have about him/her.
The perception of this government that seems to have built firmly in the minds of the people is that it is a government with absolutist intentions, with zero tolerance to dissent and that is out there to ban anything that comes in the way of its intentions to please only members of the majority community in this country. Sadly, it is not what it ought to have been. Thanks to the bans, from beef to two minute noodles, and now to pornography, the chauvinism that dictates the intentions of the government, primarily because of the ideology that most of its members adhere to, is blatantly visible to the people in magnified terms. The expulsion (another kind of ban again?) of 25 MPs of the Congress only a day after banning porn, goes only to enhance the growing perception that this is a government that serves the citizens with a fresh new ban for breakfast everyday!
But in imposing bans again, the government has missed out some very pertinent points that it should consider before rolling up its sleeves for one more. First, even when a ban is being handed out and directed against a group only, the image of the government as absolutist is being consolidated in the minds of the people, even in the minds of those whom it thinks it is out to appease.
Second, the actions of the government should start convincing people that the government of India represents the pluralistic spirit of India and is not a representative of a selective, fringe and ultra nationalistic mentality that does not even qualify as the representative mentality of the majority community of India, of which it may flatter itself into thinking as the messiah (after all, the anti-porn ban voice was limited to the minority, was it!). Immersing people in a compelling dose of yoga hasn’t gone down with the Muslims, true. Has it gone down well with rational Hindus either? The prime minister's office (PMO) is much better informed on the events of the day than a private citizen of this nation.
Third, as the head of the government, Modi must take the lead in directing the attention of his ministers in bringing in the sweeping changes that his party had promised prior to the Lok Sabha election. The promise of giant strides of development, with which he had filled the million hearts that had voted for his party in the general election of 2014, can be realised through action in those directions, not by imposing bans. A year into power, this government has hardly been any different than the previous: the same muted silence on important issues like corruption. The only visible point of difference is a airdropping of bans. With much in common between the two governments and with black money still safely away in Swiss Bank coffers, does this point of difference work out in favour of the government? The only way to hear the citizens’ “Man Ki Baat” is four years away and time is running out.
Fourth, eyewashes may be rained from heaven but no one is ever convinced by printing mistakes, omitting the word “secularism” from the token Constitution of India on Republic Day. That mistake may be a mistake but such mistakes after mistakes may one day amount to a mistake too many. From there, the government may not find itself in a situation in which the obvious imprints of such mistakes can be erased. The repeated insult of the vice president of India whose name happens to be Hamid Ansari, followed again by silence from the prime minister doesn’t do much to demolish the tag of being a chauvinist from the back of his government.
Finally, coming to the issue that started it all: bans. The government must resist its temptation of overusing it. The fact that the government of the largest democracy in the world had to soften its stance on a ban imposed on porn doesn’t actually do its prestige much good, does it? Moderation and not absolutism is the need of the hour otherwise, “we the people of India” are watching and that right of our being vigilant can never ever be banned.