Chidambaram as andolanjeevi

P. Chidambaram was born into the purple of commerce. He was bright- returning to India with a Harvard MBA in 1968. Sadly, he didn't use his inheritance and his education to make the country richer by creating jobs and finding export markets. Instead, having inherited wealth, he became a woke virtue signaling cunt.

In fairness, as a member of Manmohan's cabinet, Chidu did take a dim view of foreign funded NGOs and the various agitations they sponsor. His endorsement of draconian action against the anti Nuclear movement in his native Tamil Nadu is still remembered. 

Strangely, he is now pretending that agitations are a good thing no matter how much they are against the National interest. 

Writing in the Indian Express, he tells us-

On the day in 1970 when the Supreme Court struck down the Executive Order withdrawing privy purses given to former rulers of princely states, another young advocate and I ‘joined’ the Youth Congress in Tamil Nadu.

It was not yet wholly dynastic. 

We joined by being part of a Youth Congress-organised protest against the judgment near the statue of Lord Munro in Chennai. We were arrested and released shortly afterwards. When privy purses were finally abolished by an amendment to the Constitution, we believed that our protest (and arrest) had led to the amendment and we had been vindicated!

This is utterly mad! Indira issued the Executive Order and then amended the Constitution. Why? It was a populist measure in keeping with her lurch to the left. Chidu asks us to believe that a smart guy with a Harvard MBA thought that his shouting slogans caused the hereditary privilege of the Princes to disappear! How stupid and ignorant does he think we are?  

Our protest was a dissent to the judgment of the Supreme Court.

No. It was something organized by the Youth Congress so that a couple of people could get to say they 'courted arrest' and that 'Madam' had responded to their anguish by changing the Constitution.  

There were similar protests at many places in the country. The Supreme Court did not haul us for contempt of court;

Hilarious! The Bench was groveling at Indira's feet!  

no one labelled us as anti-national; and no police agency charged us with sedition. Bless them.

Because that is what Madam wanted. She would later suspend all Constitutional rights and jail and torture anyone she pleased. Chidu, however, had ensured his own safety. But Stalin Karunanidhi was tortured.  

A dissenting mind belongs to a thinking person.

Only to the extent that an assenting or cowardly mind does so too.  

Great judges have been great dissenters: Justice Frankfurter, Justice Subba Rao, Justice H R Khanna and others.

A Judge who has a 'dissenting opinion' in a particular case is not a dissenter. Only if a Judge resigns because he or she feels the Basic Structure of the Constitution has been tampered with could such a person be called a dissident or a dissenter. 

Frankfurter was called a radical, not a dissenter. It is true he wrote more dissenting opinions than concurring opinions but this was because he was generally concurring and someone else was writing the opinion. 

Subba Rao wasn't on the Bench long. He resigned to run for the Presidency on a united Opposition ticket. Indira got rid of his pesky Golaknath decision soon afterwards. It is not clear why Chidu, who was against Privy Purses, brackets Subba Rao with Frankfurter. H.R Khanna is a different kettle of fish. But he resigned on being superseded rather than supinely hanging on while Sanjay and his Youth Congress thugs ran amok.

The dissenting judge, sometimes joined by other judges on the Bench, writes a minority judgment that was described as “an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day”.

Or the reverse. Dissenting opinions can be very stupid indeed.  

In the field of sports, dissent is expressed by raising a clenched fist.

No. It is represented by beating the shit out of the umpire and any one else who gets in your way. 

In a business enterprise, dissent takes the form of work-to-rule or a strike.

Nonsense! It takes the form of a law suit or a demerger. A strike is not dissent. It is a threat point in a bargaining game.  

In politics and public life, dissent is expressed as a protest.

Not necessarily. Dissidents may simply retreat from public life and refuse to serve the Administration. By contrast, as in India, 'protests' may be orchestrated by the ruling party for a cosmetic purpose. Chidu protesting re. Privy Purses is a classic example. It wasn't dissent. It was sycophancy or careerism.  

Some protests garner widespread support and become an agitation, sometimes drawing thousands into the agitation. All ‘agitationists’ are passionate about the ‘cause’, many are willing to suffer and make sacrifices, few are selfish, and only a handful formulate the strategy. The last-named are the andolanjeevis, christened as such and denounced by the Prime Minister on February 8 while speaking in the Rajya Sabha.

The PM's political career began with the Nav Nirman agitation. The destruction of the Babri Masjid too was 'agitational'. These are the things which enabled the BJP to come to power. But both agitations happened long ago. The BJP saw that 'andolans' aren't popular. Good governance is what wins votes. Modi is saying Congress can't govern for shit. All it can do is sponsor 'andolans' which, however, cause them to lose votes. 

The Great Agitator

The quintessential andolanjeevi in the first half of the 20th century was, without question, Mahatma Gandhi.

Every single andolan of his- unless it was cosmetic, as in Champaran, and intended to draw attention away from what was really happening - failed completely and utterly. That was a remarkable outcome. After Independence, the Indian State didn't think it worthwhile to save him from an Assassin's bullet. Indeed, Godse is now more popular in some circles than Gandhi.  

He instinctively picked the right causes — indigo cultivation and salt tax.

But indigo cultivation would have collapsed anyway. It couldn't pay for itself. Still, the real reason Gandhi was in Bihar was so as to disguise the fact that the Hindus were attacking the Muslims and forcing them to give up cow slaughter.

The salt tax, as Chidu knows, is still with us. Clearly Gandhi picked the wrong causes. 

He was a wordsmith and invested words with powerful messages — satyagraha and Quit India.

But the Brits didn't quit India till America refused to finance the Raj. Still, Nehru begged Mountbatten to stay on for at least another 6 months. As for 'satyagraha'- everybody could see it was based on stupid lies- e.g. the notion that Hindus would die in the cause of Khilafat. 

He believed in the power of symbols — a fistful of salt and khadi (hand-spun and hand-woven) clothing.

But the salt tax remains. Khadi of Gandhi's sort has disappeared. He objected to handloom weavers producing luxury items they couldn't wear themselves. But that is the only kind which is economically viable.  

He forged new weapons in the struggle for Independence — indefinite fasting and Dandi Yatra.

But fasting did not influence the Brits at all. They had already shown they could use forcible feeding and 'cat and mouse' tactics to defeat hunger strikes by Suffragettes. Gandhi used fasting only against Indians- e.g Ambedkar- who had reason to fear evil consequences if that old hypocrite died. Anyway, Godse got rid of that nuisance and thus has earned a place in the pantheon of Indian nationalism. 

Chidu could have abolished the salt tax when he was Finance Minister. Why did he not honor 'Dandi Yatra' then?  

He used soft power — bhajans and prayer meetings.

He was shot at one such. The assassin was captured by an American. It seems the Indian Government was not greatly concerned with protecting the life of that old coot. Interestingly, 3 people with the surname Gandhi have been assassinated despite being entitled to high level security. No wonder Rahul doesn't want to step up to the plate.  

A lot of thought must have gone into crafting and leading the struggle for Independence.

But that thought must have been very stupid indeed if India did not get in 1922 what Ireland and Egypt and Afghanistan got.  

He was the original andolanjeevi; we are proud to call him the Father of the Nation.

To be fair, Gandhi's salience was as much associated with his ability to call off andolans and to surrender unconditionally as it was to doom them from the start by his stupidity. 

On the other hand, Gandhi was very good at begging for money and posing as a holier than thou cunt. India under Nehru adopted begging bowl diplomacy and a defeatist military doctrine. Blaming Bapu for this was a sound move.  

Dissent has shaped the history of nations, dissent has given birth to new religions, dissent has liberated millions of people.

No. History features dissent and assent and absence of mind and everything else. New Religions pop up because some guys get to thinking God is talking to them. Liberation is about the cost and benefit of Coercion. Often, it is merely cosmetic.  

Lenin revolted against the provisional government installed after Tsar Nicholas II had abdicated, and the first Communist nation was born.

Because Lenin, whom the Germans had sent to Russia to undermine the Allied War effort, promised peace and land. He broke both promises. Lies, not dissent, birthed the first Communist nation.  

Siddhartha Gautama, Martin Luther and Guru Nanak dissented from the religious order in which they were born and founded a new reformist religious order.

Nonsense! Gautama was a student of Kapila. What he dissented from was the 'Sangha' of his Tribe. Briefly, he didn't want to fight in a war against a stronger tribe. So he promised he wouldn't aid the enemy but just get on with attaining Moksha or whatever. He was not dissenting against Brahminism. On the contrary, one particular sect of Brahmins were admitted to his Sangha purely by virtue of birth. What he did repudiate was a particular type of Shramanic ascesis which he considered too harsh. 

Luther could be said to be a dissident. He could also be said to be an antisemite and a guy who wanted the Princes to crush the peasantry. Still, he had a point. Monks should marry Nuns and leave the buttocks of little boys alone. 

Nanak lived under Muslim occupation. His importance lies in the fact that the sect he created took up arms against Muslim rulers and established their own Empire. 

To them we owe the birth of Buddhism, Protestantism and Sikhism.

Buddhism spread untouchability to Japan. By contrast, Bali has Brahmins but no untouchables. 

 Buddhist 'dissent' is based on the notion that Buddhist monks are superior to all other beings. We have no reason to give credence to this view.

Protestants have persecuted both Catholics as well as other Protestants. In English the word 'Dissenter' originally meant a Protestant whose form of worship was not acceptable to the Established, Anglican, Church. 

Sikhism too has a history of factional violence and ethnic cleansing.  

Martin Luther King Jr’s dissent on the prevailing social order — and the movement that sprung from his dissent — liberated millions of black Americans, something that a civil war could not do. His passionate cry “I have a dream” was an appeal to the conscience of Americans.

But MLK was supporting, not dissenting, from the existing tendency of Federal Legislation. Malcolm X could be said to have been a dissenter. Then he was killed by members of a rival faction.

There were at least three watershed years in India in the first half of the twentieth century: 1920, 1930 and 1942.

And in each case there was a big andolan which back-fired completely. It was left to the Brits to decide the pace and shape of reform.  

Each one of the years was marked by a nationwide agitation that seamlessly became a movement and transformed into a struggle for freedom.

But which fell apart and increased communalism and reduced the role of the Indian National Congress.  

The non-cooperation movement evolved into the civil disobedience movement and culminated in the Quit India movement, which was the final blow to the imperial power of Britain.

But Britain survived that blow. It beat the Japanese with American help. Had Truman been willing to finance the Raj, they'd have stayed till the Seventies- as Nehru predicted. 

On the other hand, mutinies in the Armed forces did concentrate British minds. However, if they could have raised the pay of Naval ratings etc- i.e. if Uncle Sam stumped up cash- then they could have ridden out the problem.  

The true meaning of andolan is not ‘agitation’ but ‘movement’.

Like a bowel movement.  

There are examples of agitations evolving into people’s movements in other countries as well. The anti-Vietnam war protests that exploded on university campuses across the United States (1968) exposed the lies of the US government and, in a few years, the US beat a humiliating retreat from South Vietnam, that led to a united Vietnam.

Why? Because the North Vietnamese were better fighters and had Chinese and Soviet support. There would have been no anti-Vietnam protest if there had been no draft. Indeed, if Irma Adelman's advise had been heeded- i.e. if America had financed land-reform so the peasants wouldn't have needed the Viet Cong to scare landlords away- South Vietnam could have prospered and arrived at a modus vivendi with the North. But South Vietnam's leadership was as corrupt and incompetent as Chidu's Congress Party. 

Some movements — the Velvet Revolution and the Romanian Revolution (both 1989) — succeeded in overthrowing longstanding authoritarian regimes (Czechoslovakia, Romania).

But all those regimes fell because Gorbachev listened to some silly mathematical economists and surrendered Party control of the Economy. This led to a scissors crisis. Soviet clients had to go it alone economically speaking. Only Cuba and North Korea held firm- though at the price of famine.

Some like Arab Spring in Egypt failed (2011). The enduring lesson of these movements is that the human spirit that seeks a change for the better can never be suppressed forever.

Does this man read over what he writes? He just said 'sometimes movements fail'. He could have added that often things get better without any movement whatsoever. Thus the 'enduring lesson' is 'movements in the human spirit' may or not be suppressed forever. What matters is whether a change is feasible. The Human Spirit has yearned for super powers since time began. There have been all sorts of crazy movements- e.g. the Boxer rebellion, or Maji Maji rebellion- where indigenous  people believed they could become invulnerable to Western bullets- but which failed in precisely the way Gandhian satyagraha failed. Magic does not work. 

There is an interesting correlation between citizens’ political rights/civil liberties and press freedom.

This has not been India's experience. The Press got freer while ethnic cleansing mounted. If you don't even have the right to life and property and must run away, how does it help you if you can publish an article critical of the powers that be?  

A country that ranks higher in terms of citizens’ rights will also have a better press freedom score.

No it won't. Rights are linked to remedies under a vinculum juris- a bond of law. If going to court for remedies to rights violations involves nothing but expense and delay and then, finally, a completely unenforceable judgment, we can't say citizens have effective rights. But the press may be completely free. Indeed, if the population is largely illiterate or has come to despair of the political process, why bother with it anyway?  

The conclusion is logical because it is the media that reflects and amplifies (or distorts and diminishes) the assertion of rights by citizens.

Not in a country with a lot of functional illiteracy and little purchasing power. 

Finland and several European countries are on the top in both scorecards.

But Jamaica scores high on press freedom while being the murder capital of the world.  

Near the bottom is China.

Because it is lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and becoming a Global Super Power 

India is somewhere in the middle.

Because it is nowhere near as successful. 

The hope is India’s score will rise, the fear is it will slide.

Nonsense! Nobody gives a fuck.  

Ask the Editors’ Guild or the Press Club of India.

Why? They are a bunch of crooked tossers.  

Every 15 days or thereabouts they complain bitterly about accusations against or the arrest of a journalist or a raid on a media organisation but, in the end, they meekly surrender or become His Master’s Voice. Ramnath Goenka was the last fearless owner of a newspaper and an andolanjeevi.

He was a Marwari. Those guys did well out of their association with Gandhi, Nehru etc. But India did not. We'd have been better off either getting Independence in 1922 or keeping the Brits around till the Seventies so as to develop lots of Hong Kong type industrial centers.  

Andolanjeevis will ultimately prevail over those who will suppress speech, writing, expression, dissent, protests, agitations or movements

Only if poverty and economic stagnation prevails. Otherwise there is a trade-off between jailing nutters now and getting richer quickly as opposed to letting nutters roam free till we too have nothing else to do but join one such movement and go sleep on some road while being fed at a langar in return for feebly mouthing stupid slogans. 

China has already prevailed, though- no doubt- under Modi, India gave quite a good account of itself. This is not to the taste of the andolanjeevis whom, quite naturally, China is ready to finance.