Recently, I finished this book - 'A People's History of the United States' by Howard Zinn. It is considered a classic in the American history category. I must say that the book really impressed me and it is must have in everyone's collection, even though one (thinks that) he/she does not have an even remote connection with the United States. Here are two reasons for that: One, every person on earth has either consumed goods, services produced by US company (includes the very site which is delivering you this blog) or has a direct/indirect influence of the US foreign policy. Second, I cannot find any other book which narrates the history of my country from people's perspective. The 'people' includes farmers, workers, woman, laborers, middle class. Most history books are focused on actions taken by leaders of freedom movements or decisions taken by ministers. There is hardly any mention of what people were doing, thinking during that period.
According to me, a good book should not just offer the pleasure of reading but should also provoke the reader to ask questions. Zinn's book does exactly the same. It made me ask: Should US be considered democratic country? Is the ballot box the only way for citizens to raise their voice? How come 1% of the population controls 99%? The good part is that Zinn answers most of these questions with his awesome, fluid narrative. I would like to share that and draw parallel in the Indian context.
India is considered as the largest democracy in the world. Our favorite topics are Bollywood, cricket, and election. Let's talk about the third one.Even though we have gone through the turmoil of Presidential rule in past and politicians haven't stopped giving false promises, every five years, we hold general elections and majority participates with new hope every time. So, is democracy working for common people? I think, no. Look at these facts: 80% of Indians barely manage to survive with half a dollar a day [1], 1% of top Indians own 58% of the country wealth [2], farmer suicide is rising. I can add many more such facts. Even though the situation is getting worse every day, we are still hopeful. Why? Well, US history helps to answer this. In the US, the government has managed to keep controlling people by provoking them to fight with each other using class war, racism, suppression rights (in case of women, blacks, native americans) etc. After the arrival of TV, it has successfully managed by running government propaganda through media. Today, the internet is used to bombard citizens with manufactured content to shape belief. If beliefs of citizens are manufactured, the information is controlled by few people, can citizens make an informed voting decision? I doubt. If someone tries to dig all information and make the decision, does he/she get a good candidate to choose? Usually, people are left with only one strategy - chose the least corrupt. So, I want to ask: is ballot box powerful enough to create change?
If we look at the history of US, people won their rights by fighting for it, not by voting for right politicians. Take the example of blacks. They did not have voting rights. They fought the war for it. Same is the story of women. They fought for voting rights. After a while, they realized the truth - voting is not a sufficient task to control government. People also observed that there is hardly any media that was in their problems. So, people started their own newspapers, radio channels and started discussing the issues that mattered to them. So, a platform was created. Women, blacks, native Americans benefitted a lot with this. By 60's, new media created awareness among people and united them. Of course, traditional media and government administration did their best to divide them and succeeded in some cases. By 60's, after fighting two world wars for the government, people lost faith in government and started the civil disobedience movement. It was similar to Gandhi's non-cooperative movement. The government realized very soon that there is 'too much of democracy' [3]. In order to pacify people's anger, few people-centric policies were implemented (food coupons scheme, monetary support for unemployed people, investment in research, low-cost education etc). Civil disobedience worked. The growth of US that we see today is the result of 60's movement.
Today we need another civil disobedience movement. It seems that everyone knows that the government is run by crooks today but everyone feels powerless in front of it. The reason is: we have become too obedient. Well, the root of this lies in the structure of education system. Here is a paragraph from Zinn's book that captures how the education system is designed to control workers who were challenging inhuman policies of factory owners by doing strikes:
Back in 1859, the desire of mill owners in the town of Lowell that their workers be educated was explained by the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education:
To translate above paragraph in simple words, 'we [government] should put workers in the education system in order to imbibe ideas that will make them think that the current system is good'.The owners of factories are more concerned than other classes and interests in the intelligence of their laborers. When the latter are well-educated and the former are disposed to deal justly, controversies and strikes can never occur, nor can the minds of the masses be prejudiced by demagogues and controlled by temporary and factious considerations.
We often read, see in the media that India hasn't lost faith in the democratic system. Is this true? Take any recent election, one hardly finds people's voting percentage touching 60%. Middle class comprises of the biggest participant in this. It thinks the remaining 40% (mostly poor, backward class) do not vote because they are lazy, uneducated and unpatriotic. I do not think so. If voting would have solved problems of poor, why wouldn't they go out once in five years and vote for their candidate? Why do they still choose to work in farms, factories on voting day? The reason is - they have lost hope. Their anger is visible through resistance (usually, not shown in mainstream media) but the administration (read government) has managed to keep them in control with the power of guns and religious violence. As a result, the system is under control. In future, when middle class realizes this whole game, it will be too difficult to handle their disobedience. As long as the middle class is 'hooked' to propaganda, the system will run forever.
2019 elections are coming up. Media has already successfully created hype for it. I do not see any political leader talking about income inequality or issue of economic policies [4]. Drawing parallel, from American history, I think we should not have high hopes from ballot box anymore. So, I would suggest you to spend less than 30 minutes to think about elections and more about civil disobedience. And yes, do read the book. It's awesome!
Notes:
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSDEL218894
[2] http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/india-needs-inclusive-and-employment-based-development-118040500168_1.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crisis_of_Democracy
[4] Watch this discussion by US politicians: https://youtu.be/Mw46J5F4T_c It is still rare to find such discussion in India.
“We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”
- Howard Zinn
I agree that ballot box alone is not sufficient to alleviate our problems, but do you know any better alternative to democracy.... Are you favouring Chinese model of polit bureau with no elections ? which model will you establish after the proposed civil disobedience?
ReplyDeleteI definitely do not agree with Chinese model. I want to point out that if a country holds elections, it does not imply that the country is democratic. Unless people participate in the system, I don't think that we can call it democracy. Most of the times, the definition of participation is limited to voting. The reason is, election commission and education system (both controlled by government) gives impression that voting is the supreme act of participation in democracy. In this article, I challenge this notion and point out that doing strikes, disobeying unjust laws, putting pressure on government has worked in history but not voting. So, these actions should be considered more important than voting.
DeleteNoam Chomsky is another important personality in political activism. He suggests anarchism as an alternative to democracy.
To add more clarity about Chomsky's view, he proposes 'anarcho-syndicalism'.
DeleteHuman's natural tendency is to concentrate power and enjoy unchecked influence over decision making, democratic sentiment is therefore unnatural.... Our democracy is only 7 decades old, it would remain immature for at least 5 decades more before it can claim to be stable and we can have a comparison with west....anarchism would not be suitable in India because the diversity and traditional outlook does not permit it. Anarchism can be exploited to pit one group against the other. We must work to reform the democratic institutions. I however would favour shift towards complete federal form of government with changes in voting ..something similar to German model
ReplyDeleteI think desire to be free is more innate that the desire to have unlimited power. If we look at description of Native Americans in Spanish traveler's diary, we find that it is not natural for humans to want to have unchecked influence over others. When Coulombs reached America, he observed that there was no notion of private property among Native Americans and everybody was considered equal. Of course, one or two people in that society must have desired to increase their influence, but society as a whole never considered concentration of power as good thing. In fact, I think that the desire for freedom should be considered as natural. If we look at example of war between king Ashoka and adivasis, adivasis fought hard against rule of Ashoka as freedom was more important than their own life. This did not happen at other places where Ashok attacked because other places were already 'civilized' i.e. people were used to accepting authority. Similarly, Native Americans fought very hard against Britishers to stay free and they never chose to be slave. As a result, Britishers had to import Africans as slave. If we look closely at tribes, we observe this common trait.
DeleteIt should be noted that like India, America is also diverse. People from Latin America, Spain, China, Africa, Europe have come (either voluntarily or as slave) and settled there hundred years ago. Their democracy is 200 years old but even though, they are not able to solve problems which democracy was supposed to solve. In fact, problems like income inequality have become more severe. Considering that India is following American model (increased influence of businesses in policies, role of media in election, increasing privatization), should we expect that after 50 years, we will be at better position than US is today?
Federal model followed by Germans is promising but note that even that is result of activism by people. Government did not declare welfare programs or decentralize power voluntarily.
Americans fought against British not because they were not willing to accept the suzerainty of the crown but because they wanted freedom to trade, so it was more of economic grievance rather than a political demand to get freedom from UK per se. Ashoka and kalinga have a different story. Tribes of Odisha considered Magadha as infringement in their way of life, thud fought bravely against Ashoka. But every society needs a political head, some sort of power centre without which there would be anarchy and chaos. Our democracy permits pressure groups and protests and consider it a legitimate part of governance. Every system has its problems, solution lies in reform not overthrow.
ReplyDeleteI agree with second part of the answer.
DeleteRegarding first part, do not confuse Native Americans with white Americans who demanded freedom. By 'Native Americans' I meant 'American Indians' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States). These are also tribes like Adivasis of Kalinga.
Yup...sorry, didn't read word native. :p
DeleteAnd freedom has many connotations.. No one is truely free, all are slaves to pulses of mind :)
ReplyDeleteAgree :-)
Deletehttp://nikhilwritings.blogspot.in/2018/04/reading-newspaper-in-chomskys-way.html
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