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Indian leaders have a stake in the confusion that prevails

Every time New Delhi or Patna comes up for discussion, the sophisticated crowd in Calcutta have a sickening feeling inside: How will they show their face to friends in, for instance, Silicon Valley? They must learn to conduct themselves better. That formidable institution specialising in the assessment of the investment-worthiness of countries, Moody's, may have a hundred different reasons for marking down India with the worst possible rating.

The mess in political affairs need not, should not, be at the head of this listing of reasons. Rather, the ministry of finance has dug its own grave; once speculation promises such high profit, only the imbecile will fall into the trap of long-term investment. There is, therefore, little point in cultivating any extra bit of shamefacedness because of the manner in which the game of democratic politics is being played out in the country.

Whether the drama unfolding every day has some lush nuances of farce or is outright tragedy depends upon what school of thought one belongs to. But in case the concept of a unity-in-diversity India is accepted with alacrity, no ground would exist for posting complaints over the turns and twists local politicians demonstrate with such amazing skill. Shame, beside, is a subjective emotion: if one does not feel it, not a thousand endeavours on the part of neighbours will reverse the situation.

True, countless oddities keep occurring in and around the precincts. A party widely acknowledged to be corrupt from top to bottom, whose representation in the Lok Sabha was sliced to one half only last year by the electorate, has assumed centrestage. It nominates the person to occupy the highest offices of the nation, its charter of demands has to be satisfied if the incumbent prime minister has aspirations to stay put for the next three weeks or the next three months. And yet, to claim that the ongoing events are a blot on the Indian ethos is sheer bunkum.

A gradual obliteration of memory is indeed natural with the passing of decades; liberalisation at a breathless pace also contributes to the anti-history mood. Serious-minded scholars, not particularly sectarian in attitude, will nonetheless readily come forward to clinch the debate over, for instance, Mahatma Gandhi's moral system; each of Gandhiji's statements was, and is, amenable to, they will assure you, 11 major interpretations and maybe 40 to 50 minor ones, with wide gaps distinguishing each one from the rest.

Or why do not we quote from the heraldic Purana tracts, including from those classics that were such a great hit on the Doordarshan screen barely a decade ago? The Pandavas emerged as the great conquerors in the battle of Kurukshetra. It will be difficult to mention even one tenet of conventional dharma they did not flout in order to win that epic battle. Few of the Mahabharata characters, or, for that matter, those from the Ramayana either, have bothered to stick to the straight and narrow path of integrity. They have defined integrity in their own manner, barring nincompoops like Nakul or Sahadev.

What is interesting though is the seemingly easy admixture of Purana non-ethics with the appurtenance of high-tech telecommunications. Amoral practices are no longer a mater of confidentiality, something done on the sly. It is as transparent as transparency can be, the sleaziest act a politician performs is held aloft as another trophy that has been won after worsting the enemy.

Bourgeois susceptibilities of yore have died out. The most crucial of all realisations, has dug deep roots; if India is to survive in capitalism and, at the same time, also as a single political entity, the garbage of ethical niceties has to be forsake. These are being comprehensively forsaken. It will henceforth be a confused land, a confusing land, a country inured to daily conflicts, some docile, others grossly violent in nature. It will be continuously riven by tension which has its genesis in ethnic or linguistic disputations or caste or religious sectarianism.

There will, nevertheless, be one remarkable common feature distinguishing the fights, riots, stealings and squabbles: a convergence of the class interests of those who lead the different ethnic groups, the linguistic sects, the caste armies, and so on. These leaders have a stake in the confusion.

It is the house they have built with great assiduity. They have reasons to be satisfied with their handiwork: the fact that they flourish is on account of the confusion. This is, in other words, the unified system of class interests. The leaders don different jersies; no matter, scratch their hearts, you will discover the same specificity of blood.

There is, not suprisingly, a generous mood of mutual accommodation at the highest reaches of politics. There is also an easy mobility which goes well with flexible morals. Should someone somehow manage to climb to the top of the totem pole, never mind by following which shady political line, the person is welcomed with a bear hug and a dozen kisses on both cheeks. At that juncture, the sectarian slogans lose their significance; they are in the nature of masks, the reality lies in the commonalty of interests nurtured by the leaders.

This is the arrangement for 1997. Whether it will continue to be valid for the next two or four years or for the next quarter of a century is a near intractable question to answer at this point of time. Seasoned characters, as is only to be expected, bow to the inevitable. They can neither mend nor end the system. Compromise appears to be the optimum solution. Even supposedly gentlemen politicians, who are privately aghast at the goings on, learn to live with the ground reality.

They attend the parliamentary sessions, they participate in debates, they vote according to the whip issued by their leaders, they obediently troop in to cast their ballot at the elections for the highest offices of the land without questioning how the choices have been made by the steering committee of the elites. To negotiate successfully the first contradiction, discovering tranquillity in an ocean of chaos is what matters.

One has to survive within the system since one is not yet prepared to do without it. It is, therefore, purposeless to be inordinately unhappy with what happens in the immediate neighbourhood week in and week out. Should you feel any other way, you might as well jump out of the window. That is liberalisation.

Most political functionaries simply go along with the easy-to-describe-as-scandalous set-up, for rebellion is not a practical proposition. If India is assumed to be a collective homogenous entity, it is by no stretch a revolutionary situation; notions of dialectics get quickly lost in the wilderness.

Does this mean that all ethical principles are to be made a bonfire of and any private citizen will have the right to grab the rifle the moment uncomfortable issues are brought up for discussion by a dim-witted co-citizen? That stage will not doubt arrive, as it has arrived in some parts of the United States, the free spirit does not tolerate notes of dissent.

Meanwhile, we have the liberty to read classical novels and romantic poetry even when we do not quite subscribe to the mood they reflect. Just like our observing certain principles of thermodynamics. Not to follow them will evoke little and big local difficulties in daily living. One learns the technology of survival. Tomorrow, don't you know, is another day, despite your being already comprehensively sick today.

It will however be a different matter in case the constituents of India prefer the terminal disease to end. They may decide that the unspelled-out contract which binds the country together had better come untuck. Foreign agents, do not have the talent to bring about this miracle: it is perhaps the laziness of compatriots which will keep India safe for chaotic democracy, for ever and ever.