Comment

Two women and public morality

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THERE is something perverse about a public discourse which devotes, with little prompting, considerable discussion time, column space, and sound bites to the ‘sacrifice’ of one woman but needs to be nudged and perhaps shamed into giving some attention to the ‘struggle’ of another. One could object to this observation by saying that the two are not comparable, as different as parmesan and paneer, for Sonia Gandhi is the leader of the party in power, the Congress party, while Medha Patkar is only the leader of the longest struggle against displacement, the Narmada Bachao Andolan. But as we move beyond this trivial distinction into the realm of political morality the differences begin to blur. We find that our appreciation of one action draws its inspiration from the same measure of worth by which the actions of the other is also judged. Both actions are driven by a higher cause. Both appear to place public good over private interest, collective benefit over individual gain. Both do things for the nation, and both are prepared to face personal hardship as a result of these actions. And yet one garners applause and high praise for her actions (as she perhaps should) from our champions of public morality, while the other gets little attention (except in some quarters) till a former prime minister visits her and her health deteriorates. That is what makes the asymmetry of our public discourse so perverse.

So what are the aspects of the two actions that make them comparable? Let us begin with the most profound – conscience. Sonia Gandhi did not accept the position of prime minister when it was offered to her on a platter because of her ‘inner voice’. It told her, one presumes, that accepting it would be harmful to the country, divide it into two and send it on a downward spiral of street protest which it could ill-afford especially after a bruising period of hate politics unleashed by the Sangh combine. Healing was called for after five years of a communalization of the polity and this required a gesture that stood above the calculus of party politics distinct from the ‘we will not blink first’ bravado that marks party competition the world over. The inner voice prompted a foregrounding of, not strategic thinking of the game theoretic kind, but moral thinking where core beliefs guide action and principles ‘trump’ – in the language of contemporary political philosophy – other calculations of what needs to be done. In making such a principled choice the terms of political agency are altered. Sonia Gandhi, hence, declined the offer of prime ministership. In doing so she restored attention to a declining dimension of our political life, that of sacrifice. Our national movement was built on the sacrifices of ordinary men and women who left work, school, home and village to fight for swaraj. This glorious history was primarily a moral struggle which gave us the pride and dignity of governing ourselves. The Mahatma listened to his inner voice. In many ways he served as the inspiration for Sonia such that in her moments of solitude, she turned to her inner voice.

Gandhiji is also Medha’s inspiration. She has steadfastly stood by his principle of ahimsa and consistently adopted his instruments of struggle. She has gone on indefinite fast to draw public attention to a cause for which she is struggling. By undergoing the rigours of fasting and abstinence she hopes to get people, especially those who disagree with her, to join her in the search for a just order. Her struggle is deeply embedded in a Gandhian epistemology, a profound belief that by taking on the suffering and hardship onto oneself the ‘scales would fall from eyes’ of those opposed to oneself and they would thereby be able to see. Voluntarily adopted self-suffering would turn the heart of one’s opponent and make him or her a fellow seeker of the truth. Medha’s many fasts are Gandhian fasts. She has tried to draw the nation’s attention, and its concern, to the plight of the displaced, the most vulnerable people in independent India. She has tried to remind us of our promise of the freedom struggle that this was to be a freedom for all Indians and not just some. She is not offering us simple solutions, or technical compromises. She is instead doing something more – inviting us to reconsider our paradigm of development.

We have, therefore, to rework our coordinates to make our future more just. The techies at the Planning Commission cannot dismiss Medha’s moral challenge as merely that, a moral statement that has no place in a neo-liberal economy, and at the same time concede to Sonia her demand for larger allocations for the employment guarantee scheme. To be consistent one should either speak the idiom of power or of morality. Medha, went on fast for twenty days to get the political institutions to do what they promised the courts that they would. Nothing excessive, just honest rehabilitation. Just compensating the people displaced by the other Idea of India by giving them a respectable and sustainable livelihood. But our other Shining India is not listening. It has no time. Worse, it shows no inclination to do so. Maybe the two women should come together. Imagine the moral power that this would unleash. Not just for India but for the world.

Peter Ronald deSouza

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