Our expectations from and understanding of democratic governance have hit such rock bottom that the latest Supreme Court (SC) ruling on “bulldozer justice” appears to be a major achievement. While it is indeed a much-needed nudge, the matter need not have gone to the SC in the first place. It reached the Court because of the political thuggery that goes in the name of effective governance and a cynical abdication of minimal norms by the administration.
As our experience of “encounters” — another form of bulldozing procedure — shows, not many encounters get effectively investigated; we seldom get news of police officials responsible for illegal encounters being punished in an exemplary manner. Above all, political mileage from encounters continues to be extracted. After a recent “encounter” in Maharashtra, banners were reportedly displayed showing the state’s home minister (who also happened to be Deputy CM), with a revolver in his hand as if to celebrate it. There is no evidence that the minister protested against this politicisation and crudity.
Assuming that this ruling of the SC will be broadly respected, the larger malaise will still remain, because the bulldozer is a symptom of what is wrong with our democracy. The Court has finally taken note of the physical bulldozer and has attempted to restrict its illegal use. But conceptually and ideologically, the bulldozer is still very much there and there is pretty little that the Court can/will do about it. These conceptual and ideological bulldozers consist of a statism that believes in prioritising the supposed interests of the state over those of citizens. Toward this end, not merely the executive but the legislature too is quite proactive and the judiciary has either been a silent spectator or a willing participant. Ironically, the draconian powers of the state are often legitimised through a supposedly democratic set of arguments.
Three arguments contaminate our understanding of democracy. First, the idea that democracy is only about the majority. Two, there is often a manufactured hankering after a “strong leader” in the name of a strong government. Three, an election is understood as giving a mandate rather than a limited authorisation. These constitute the real bulldozer. Each one of these principles does have a nuanced connection with democracy and yet, when they are taken in isolation and caricatured at the cost of everything else they become the ideological apparatus for justifying bulldozers and encounters — actual and conceptual.
Undeniably, a majority is a crucial idea for democracy because when there are differences of opinions, how can we proceed but by following the majority view? However, this idea overpowers the possibility of negotiation; it undermines the virtues of compromise and romanticises numeric or community-based majority vis-à-vis procedural norms. Similarly, it is reasonable to expect decently firm governments but more often, existing governments are ridiculed for slowness and ineffectiveness. This produces the craving for strong leaders who, once in power, claim powers personally rather than as office-holders. Very easily, the positions of formal power are confused with personalised identification with provisions of goods and services — the language that a person is guaranteeing you something represents this personalisation of authority.
But perhaps, the greatest damage is done by the idea that an elected party and office-bearer have a mandate. When elections are turned into carnivals of plebiscite, naturally, the elected leader is seen as enjoying a broad mandate. In reality, an election is a procedural mechanism whereby we temporarily elect certain persons to perform public duties. This somewhat sober understanding of election and elected officeholders gets drowned by claims of mandate. Elections are seen as if voters are choosing a king — and indeed, those elected do perceive themselves as elected kings. Forget the prime ministers and chief ministers, even city councillors have this illusion that they are unhindered by norms and procedures. Many Indian practices have helped accentuate this illusion. The practice of appointing “guardian ministers” for each district allows the minister to imagine that (s)he is the uncrowned owner of power over that district. Elected representatives are given budgets to spend on their constituencies — a practice that strengthens the idea of representatives being masters.
No wonder, arguments that procedures are only a hindrance to the realisation of “popular will” circulate both among citizens and those seeking to represent them. While full-fledged populism may or may not become the hallmark of a political culture, such impatience helps conceptual bulldozers to become acceptable. As this writer has recently argued elsewhere, an intricate two-way flow of demands to bulldoze procedures and the systematic supply of bulldozer ideas keep feeding each other. Encounters are hailed by the public as a necessary expression of toughness and are held out by the leaders as part of their mandate to rule.
At the time of the last Lok Sabha elections, the National Election Study by Lokniti found that out of every three persons who had an opinion, one person believed that courts and constitutional institutions are not necessary to check the powers of elected leaders. This finding should caution us about the extent of diffused support for bulldozer ideas. When elected politicians go out of their way to claim that they have a mandate, when leaders assert a divine purpose, when electoral majorities are used to target specific communities and political authority is exercised in order to shape the dominance of one community over the other, bulldozers cross over from physical existence into the realm of ideas.
Contemporary India witnesses this transgression much more. Using legislation as a bulldozer, governments can do much more damage than by the use of physical bulldozers. Democracy is a delicate and difficult balance among foundational norms, procedural restraints and popular wishes. Such an idea of democracy becomes a hindrance to megalomaniac projects of reshaping norms, undermining procedures and hijacking popular sentiments. Therefore, projects to redefine democracy emerge. Such projects primarily challenge procedures, run them down as either bureaucratic or elite conspiracies and posit an imaginary popular will along with electoral majorities as sufficient bases for a redefined democracy.
This development marks the extraordinariness of the current moment of bulldozer governance. It is as much about demolishing central ideas that constitute democracy as it is about the physical demolitions perpetrated by actual bulldozers.
The writer, based in Pune, taught Political Science
