Governance by Gundagiri (not Gandhigiri)

The turn of events is particularly tragic when one remembers that India was once a harbinger of smiles and hopes even during times of structural poverty

Gandhi Jayanti Quiz time, dear readers. An Indian Administrative Service officer ordering police to crack the skulls of protesting farmers. An RWA (resident welfare association) in its gated apartments in Indian cities bullying residents for daily trinkets even if that means sacrificing threats to life safety. A multi-billion-dollar Indian ed-tech startup purportedly threatening its enrolled parents for monthly EMIs. Patients and their families showing up at hospitals in Indian cities, big and small, to bash up healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, or others included. Or an Indian university dean insisting on in-person classes, enforcing attendance despite digital frictions or invoking salary cuts even with a potentially waning Covid-19.

Scan your news, and if you caught the general trend and are observing its pervasiveness, you got it right. India of late has seen this rapid diffusion of Governance by Gundagiri, or translated informally, governance by hooliganism - from the grassroots to its topmost levels.

And these are indeed the milder ones. Twitter is now inundated with videos of horrific deaths after rapes on young women in villages or torture inflicted on Dalits and Muslims in villages - for whom it's a daily story of brutality, especially in certain Indian states.

The turn of events is particularly tragic when one remembers that the country was once a harbinger of smiles, hopes, trust and social bonds even during the times of structural poverty during the past few decades.

But while a mad rush for growth has now collapsed on its way to losses and stresses of Covid-19 during the last year and a half, a mismanaged economy by a populist government added to massive lack of jobs, is potentially resulting in normative citizen behaviour in India reaching its socially appropriate tipping point.

Meanwhile, many around, with privileged protection of elite access, turn a blind eye. When Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Neeraj Chopra recently spoke out about not making his javelin taking in Tokyo from his Pakistani counterpart, a matter of unnecessary hate or bigotry, or when a Rani Rampal or Bajrang Puniya issues similar supportive statements; they end up being the odd ones out. Their celebrity counterparts in society more or less remain mute. Those who speak out face the wrath of trolls in India's deeply divided society, where hate or fear against speaking up runs within and across households. Alternatively, there is always the spectre of wilted institutions being unleashed on them as well.

Is there a panacea for all this? In general, the solutions look bleak unless there are political mean reversions or new mean formations that India at large witnesses. But in a world where the country is surrounded by an uncertain and increasingly risky neighbourhood, be that from China, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, such hopes look like a distant dream. Many have now recently commented and debated on this transmogrification of India's historically cacophonic democracy. None have offered a solution, though. Strongman populist governments seem to continue their march supported by the apparent need for internal security from external forces, dark institutions like intransparent electoral bonds to finance their advent, compliant police forces and judiciary (with a rare judge here or there sticking their neck out albeit with costs). In fact, political responses to strongman political leaders have also seen the rise of other regional strongman or strongwoman leaders. No wonder the country's overall performance keeps sliding recently, not just on economic or democratic performance but also parameters like outward migration or happiness indices.

Maybe this is a global phenomenon. An era when a Nelson Mandela from the South African apartheid struggle or a Martin Luther King from the American civil rights movement, or a certain Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from the country's own independence struggle will be few and far between. Or maybe even if they arise, antiquated draconian laws will be invoked to mute their new age equivalents (remember Stan Swamy or Sudha Bharadwaj). And maybe the world and some 1/6th of its population (in India) will have to endure this reality of hooliganism in what Max Mueller once saw as paradise on earth.

And then hope may turn to magic one day, in a world where the country has magically thrown up social messiahs and Olympic gold medalists from nowhere on the anvil to suddenly in the nation's consciousness. Maybe that's how Vasudhaiva Kutambakam (the world is my family) will be restored in India, a minimum that the world can wish for its children tomorrow still romanticizing Gandhi's land, India.

(The author is a tenured faculty member at the University of Sussex, visiting fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.