Opinion Protest,softly

But while we think protest is necessary,we are also uncomfortable with it. Political parties are often the main conduits of protest,but each has its vested interest and internal contradictions. Each of them has to play the role of both government and opposition. Trinamool and CPM are quite happy to beggar the poor in Kolkata,but suddenly the loss of wages by daily wage labourers elsewhere pricks their conscience. The BJP needed to embarrass the government to infuse life in its role as an opposition party,so it organised something. But it does not have a clear sense of what it stands for in economics. So the policy moorings of its protest seem half-hearted. But there is probably a deeper fear that unites all political parties. It is said that in China one reason why the party does not mobilise nationalist sentiment on the street is because there is no telling what these practices of mobilisation might unleash. The CPM learnt the hard way in Kolkata that its own techniques could be used to oust it.

Indian political parties have a similar interest in neutralising social protest or using it timidly and sparingly. First,there is a genuine fear of the state’s capacity to handle even routine protest. The state of police and paramilitary forces makes the probability of some violent incident that could become a focal point relatively high.

Second,the credibility of any of the parties organising the protest is none too high. But most importantly,they are all implicated in the state in one way or the other. They share a common fear. What might start as a protest against a political party,may be a conduit for a more generalised expression of dissatisfaction against all of them. As smart politicians they know that anger is there; better to keep a lid on it. In short,politics,which should be an instrument of protest,is now a vast contrivance to tame and appropriate it,so politics as usual can go on.

The second big structural change is the changing configuration of classes. Here two important changes matter. As a result of growth,more people do have more assets and more complex economic interests. Even though,there is good reason to be dissatisfied with government performance,the uncertainties produced by social protest seem to put more at risk. Hence the argument that the economic consequences of social protest are not desirable has more traction.

But there might also be a deeper story to be told about class and protest. It is often said that the privileged influence public policy while the poor don’t. There is much truth in this claim. But it can also be misleading in some sense. It disguises the fact that the ability of the privileged to collectively shape and reform the culture of the state in the direction of the public good is severely circumscribed. But the privileged have considerably more adaptive power. All their efforts are going towards private adaptation to the state’s deficiencies rather than public goods (private security,private electricity,private education,and private health). For them social protest is essentially an imposition of costs with no gain,since they do not really believe the state can be made to serve public good.

But more importantly,effective social protest requires at least some possibility of linkage across classes. The most glaring way in which inequality is increasing is this. Till a decade or so ago all classes were defined by a common characteristic in relation to the state: they could all defy it with equal impunity. The poor could enter cities and occupy space,the rich could encroach land and the state let us get away with pretty much anything. What is changing is that the privileged can now still get away with a good deal,but it is getting harder for the poor to defy the state. So the privileged don’t want the sensitive question opened up: who is bearing the costs of economic policies? They also often feel frustrated by the state. But they fear that protesting against the state will soon turn into a protest against them. Hence we go through the charade of indignation,at the same time as we fear protest.

In the old regime,the rich had less to fear from the poor because in an ironic sort of way both had the same relationship to the state. Now that social contract is changing. For the poor: stricter rule of law,sacrifice for national progress with a few sops thrown in. For the privileged: ability to manipulate or adapt to the law,bask in the glory of national development,but don’t expect much from public goods. The whole notion of common problems,and therefore of protest structured around them,vanishes. The forms of democracy require that someone make noise from time to time,so protest has taken place. But that democracy also now requires that real problems best remain invisible,for once that Pandora’s Box is opened who knows who will be held to account.

The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi

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