Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.
Several millennia ago, Yask explained a verse in Rigveda wherein mortals ask the departing seers who will guide them now and the seers say thou shalt sit across and let equally intelligent citizens debate (oohapoh in Hindi) the issue and arrive at a consensus that shall guide all.
So even those who say we are the ‘mother of all democracies‘ must accept that free flowing and constant dialogues between citizens and leaders are the life blood of a democracy. Period.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
A dialogue such as this presupposes public spaces in which to hold the dialogues undisturbed.
In a recent discussion a retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Madan Lokur, had a beautiful legal phrase for such spaces in our times. It was, he explained, deliberately provided by our wise constitution makers in between laws, as “Constitutional Silences”. These were open ended grey areas for debating new and complex issues and arriving at a consensus for all successive generations in the new Union of India.
This is why in times of stress and confusion, we the Midnight’s Children find ourselves desperately seeking public spaces like comfort food – the spaces that transcend time or have remained mysteriously free of ravages of time which we can visit for solace.
Many such spaces existed 75 years ago. But by ‘Amrit Kaal,’ most of them are gone. An outstanding example of this is the open public space that existed around the Raisina Hill area. When it was first built in 1912, the Central Vista that led from the India Gate to the presidential palace, was called Kingsway. Post-Independence it was christened as ‘Rajpath’.
In Amrit Kaal it is renamed as ‘Kartavya Path’, the path of duty (approximate cost to the exchequer, Rs 13,750 crore). The grand vista, flanked by historic red stone buildings on both sides houses the North and the South Block that housed the most important ministries of the government of India and the prime minister’s office is too undergoing big changes, as also our parliament building, which is witness to the making of our Republic and eloquent debates over the shaping and reshaping of laws that govern us.
A little below stood the National Archives, and the Indira Gandhi National Archives for Culture and Arts. They too are being relocated.
The IGNCA is razed to the ground. And Raisina Hill ministerial buildings are all being relocated as I write. The Kartavya Path will also have a brand new house for the prime minister, now close both to the presidential palace and other official buildings. Some old ones like the parliament building shall be maintained as tourist attractions we are told, but the parliament will now function from a spanking new pink building with a replica of Ashoka’s three lions atop.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the new parliament building. Photo: PIB
What with these changes and relocations and the security cordons government offices now insist on, what was till now a pleasant public space for common citizens to come and go as they pleased shall also undergo major changes. Pity.
This was the space where generations of parents took their families for an outing. Where Indians from all over the land came to Delhi as tourists and felt great looking at the monumental glory that surrounded the area, the names of soldiers who laid down lives for the nation, the Amar Jawan Jyoti. All around them balloon sellers and peanut vendors and ice-cream hand carts made a steady living through the week, even when summer was at its fiercest.
Here, children whose parents were not lucky enough to rush to the hills or go to expensive movie theatres, could run around, even take sly dips in the little canal or one of the grand pink stone fountains, listen to bands, throw tantrums and be rewarded by balloons, spun sugar balls and cheap plastic horns and sun glasses that they sported happily on the way to their humble homes.
The Rajpath was also to generations of Indians, a space for gala national spectacles like the Republic Day parade, the Beating the Retreat and the memorial days to mark anniversaries of wars and their dead. This became a natural habitat where all those from journalists to rural farmers who wished to be heard by the leadership, would lead marches carrying protest banners, candles and the tricolour.
Also read: Saakhi: Field Notes of Our Times, From a Witness and Participant
In the 80s, one remembers marching with fellow editors to protest against a Defamation Bill that threatened to muffle free and frank reporting. It was led by stalwarts like Nikhil Chakraborty, Prem Bhatia, Ajit Bhattacharjee, H.K. Dua and Kuldip Nayar. Together we managed to raise enough doubts so finally the infamous Bill was withdrawn. Then there were numerous farmers’ marches demanding fairer prices for their produce and better selling facilities. More recently there was a memorable march demanding punishment for the rapist murderers of the brutal crime of 2012 that managed to get the rape laws amended.
That great era for exposing government lying and ‘dirty tricks’ was over a decade ago.
Dialogues between the media and India’s powerful have shrunk with Delhi’s public spaces. Routine pressers held by the PMO are a thing of the past. For journalists now, getting accreditation is hard and getting into a ministry harder. Instead we are increasingly steered towards the virtual space where the market and the leadership hold their own unilaterally, non stop. In the Age of G-7 or G-20 new global digital reality shows have replaced democratic debates, and private gain is first being deregulated and then re-regulated to nationalise private losses. Electoral rallies and projects for lakhs of crores can be launched by the press of a button on a remote.
In the midst of such an unsettling scenario, when a Rahul Gandhi chose to address audiences in the United Kingdom and voice his dismay over things as they are, the world media looked on half amused, half impressed by his audacity.
Also read: ‘BJP Wants India to Be Silent’: Rahul Gandhi in London
His vociferous critics’ defence rests on the plank that we are the ‘mother of democracy,’ a proud civilisation which is thousands of years old. The RSS president, usually taciturn on subjects other than Hindutva, took the argument further. Before the British colonised India, he said in a public meeting, we had cent per cent employment and 70% literacy, all wiped out by the wily British who when they left a ravaged nation with only 17% literacy benefitted hugely by copying our educational patters on their soil, thus raising their own literacy to 70% .
A democracy with no space for healthy public debates turns slowly into a hollow shell. It does not guarantee jobs to the starving young, but builds the world’s tallest statues, the grandest Ram temple and offers discounted tours to these new wonders to its dumbed down citizens.
Mrinal Pande is a writer and veteran journalist.