ART OF GOVERNANCE - INDIAN STYLE

The British while they came to the Indian sub-continent in search of trade, found that the country was a great economy contributing about a quarter of the world's GDP in terms of those days.  They also found that the people were educated, employed in various trades and crafts-men-ship and remained contended.  But they also found there had been internecine quarrels among the rulers to have an upper hand over the others.  These kindled their interest in them to start pitting one against the other to usurp the power from the vanquished and later from the victors.  

The country was so large with multi religious, multi linguistic, multi cultural base that they found it difficult to administer the same.  They also found that a section of Indian population were highly superior to them in their knowledge level and this was making the task of subjugating and ruling over them a daunting one.  Once, more areas of the country came under the rule of the British and the remaining princely states were favorably disposed towards them, they resolved to change the system of education that was followed in the country.  They brought in their method of education of class room teaching, evaluating the progress through exams and awarding degrees and diplomas.  

To spread their method of education far and wide, they destroyed whatever of the gurukul style of education that was remaining and reportedly burnt all the palm leaf manuscripts of various literature.  This was an act which destroyed the literature that was more than few milleniums old. Even after these attempts their hold on the Indian sub-continent was tottering and the immediate reaction was to create a division among the people on religious lines especially in east in Bengal and west in Punjab. The two large states were divided on religious lines with Muslim majority places being made into a separate state. When the congress with many stalwarts were making the life of British difficult with their clamour for freedom, the British propped up M A Jinnah and his fledgling party Muslim League. Jinnah parted ways with congress as he found that M K Gandhi was partial towards J Nehru and the Muslim leaders in the party were being sidelined.  This was exploited by the British to the hilt and thus paved the way for partition of the country. They also exploited the feelings of the downtrodden against the hegemony of the upper caste population.

The Madras presidency and the princely states of peninsular India were of a different make altogether. The pitting of one religious sect against the other as in the northern parts might not have succeeded. However, there was a deep anguish against the Brahminical dominance in the congress in the peninsular India.  Rajaji, Satyamoorthi, Pattabhi Seetharamaiah etc. were very tall leaders and their following among the brahmins in the southern part was very huge.  Moreover, the brahmins, owing to their earlier education system excelled themselves in the British education system and became part of the administration as clerks, translators, lawyers and superintendents, though the officer folk were British.  These gave rise to heart burn among the well heeled and educated elite of the non-brahmin community in the southern part of the country.  They formed the Justice party. Notable among the leaders of the Justice party were Arcot brothers, P T Rajan, C Natesa Mudaliar, T M Nair, Pitty Theagaraya Chetty, E V Ramasami Naicker, Raja of Panagal, Raja of Bobbili etc. The British used this offshoot from congress to fight the congress in southern India.  They propped up the leaders of the Juctice party and used them effectively to create an anti Brahmin sentiment among the population. This was carefully exploited by the British to cement their ruling in the southern part of the country, which had not seen violent uprising as in the northern part of the country, against either Muslim rule or British rule.

The off-shoot of the Justice party was the Dravida Kazhagam founded by EVR Naicker.  He successfully enthroned himself as the champion of downtrodden, though some of the Brahmin leaders of the congress were responsible for removing some, like temple entry etc., if not all of the restrictions on the downtrodden people of the presidency.

The successive governments in the undivided Madras state and later in the reorganized Madras state saw the Dravida Kazhagam gaining strength. In the years since 1967, the successive governments headed by the DMK, an offshoot of DK or ADMK, an offshoot of DMK had been targeting the brahmins and successfully denying lawful rights like education or employment for them in the state.  The problems faced by Brahmins in the state of Tamilnadu (earlier Madras) state had been detailed in a separate write up.  

The governments in the center at Delhi and in various states had followed in the foot-steps of the British to keep the population divided either on religious basis or on caste basis so that their hegemony of rule cannot be disturbed or questioned. The congress governments since independence had been acutely aware of the religious divide in the country post partition and independence and continued to support, albeit covertly, one section of the religious denomination. With the emergence of Indira Gandhi as the prime minister and demise of the old guard of the Indian National Congress, the covert support became overt leading to the later day government headed by Rajiv Gandhi, her son, amending the constitution to make a law to nullify the ruling of the SC in the Shah Bano case. 

Though the peninsular Indian states were not divided much on religious lines, the anti brahmin sentiments nurtured by successive governments in Tamilnadu had become so vicious, that people were forced to drop their surnames, remove the mark of identity of their caste while in public. The attacks against the Brahmins were and continue to be so even today, so vicious that a few brahmins' knotted hair tuft cut, their sacred threads cut, their religious idols broken or abused etc. with the state remaining a mute spectator in almost all the cases.  The parties claiming to be followers of EVR Naicker portray that the majority religion followed by the people is imported to the state and not of the state forgetting for the moment the great saints who had nurtured the language and religion over the past few milleniums.  The great kings of the erstwhile Chola, Pandya and Chera kingdoms contributed immensely to the development of the language and religion through the temples built by them and the grants to various temples and people for their devotion to the religion and language.  It has become a fancy for a few parties both mainline and fringe to denounce anything to do with the majority religion and uphold the Abrahamic religions with gusto and fervor. 

J Nehru looked down upon the practice of fire sacrifices in homes and temples saying that the clarified butter (ghee) is being wasted in such ceremonies.  This outlook and his mentor's partiality towards Muslims set the agenda for the government in the center headed by him and successively by his family members in alienating the people following majority religion.  The actions of his grand son Rajiv Gandhi cemented this alienation much more firmly and made it faster to make the main rival to the congress, the Bharatiya Janatha Party (formed only in 1980 from the earlier Jana Sangh) to become a strong party to wrest power in 1999 and complete a full term of five years.  

Now, the great grandson of the first prime minister J Nehru, is trying to don the role of a Brahmin though he was born to a Parsi father and a Christian mother, to defeat the popular BJP and its most popular leader N Modi. When the present day congress leaders are finding that the population of the majority religion are being weaned away from them through various means, they are shedding their centuries old avatar of saviours of minorities and donning the garb of Bakhths of the various god forms of the majority religion.  The party leader and his followers are embarking on temple run including the pilgrimage to various religious shrines like Kailash Mansarovar.  All these actions are only with the aim of defeating the BJP and the present prime minister in the hustings to the national parliament and nothing more.

The entrenched bureaucracy and judiciary who had had a wonderful time under the earlier dispensations are finding it increasingly difficult and tenuous under the present administration.  They are doing everything under their power and control to make the going very difficult for the administration.  There is a cabal working silently to make the administration look like a loser in terms of economy. The continuous losing of value of the national currency INR against the international currency of trade USD is an evident indicator of this move by the cabal. The adamant refusal of the state governments to bring the petroleum products under the GST regime is an indicator to keep the pot boiling until the next election to the national parliament.  The president of the congress seems to be forgetting that GST is the brainchild of his government earlier, and only the implementation of the same was done by the present administration.  He goes around telling, if elected to form the government in the next elections, his government will remove GST and bring back the old days.  The economic measures, even if benefiting the population, will be reversed seems to be the political narrative. 

The media is abetting in these ideas of the opposition trumping up unverified and unsubstantiated charges against the present administration. When the media is highly critical of every move of the present administration, it turned a Nelson's eye in the previous decade to the various allegations against the previous administration. Some of the well known journalists are having personal peeve with the prime minister and his party and that is echoed in the way the news is presented while they are anchoring the shows or managing the news desks.  The media instead of being a fourth pillar of democracy has become a caged parrot of the opposition for the sake of opposing the present administration.  

When a religious leader of the majority religion in the country was incarcerated on the eve of Deepavali a popular festival of majority population, there is a clear dragging of feet in arresting a religious-political leader of a minority community even though directed by the state's high court two years back. There is even more dragging of feet by another state administration and police in arresting a religious leader of another minority community despite a clear allegation of rape by a female monk of their sect. A member of the legislative assembly of the state goes around disparaging the female monk in public with choice abuses.

The highest court of the country sits even in the night for listening to the arguments, if the case relates to rich and powerful people.  The politically powerful people who were alleged to have committed frauds on the nation are roaming free and their travel abroad is facilitated by the courts.  There are reports of the leaders of the major opposition party meeting  in foreign soil, the alleged economic offenders who have fled the country. A peon who took a bribe of INR 50/- spent more than 30 years in suspension, behind bars and without any remuneration and finally the highest court confirmed the punishment of six months.  A popular actor who is alleged to have mowed down the sleepers on the pavement in a drunken state got a reprieve from the court for lack of credible evidence.  In another case of accidental death due to brake failure, the poor driver is looking at life sentence behind bar leaving his wife and two children without any support.

What is the outlook for the common man in these times? Whether the economic measures put in place by the present administration will continue to remain if the present ruling party loses in the election? Will the party in opposition dismantle the economic set up if returned to power? Will the media remain unbiased in its approach and reporting instead of colouring the news with the view of the anchor or the news desk editor?  Will the courts start treating all people at par with one another? These are questions that the common man is facing and is begging answers from the high and mighty of the Indian politics.