Challenge of Opposition Unity

When in 1960 or 1961 the mad scramble for a seat in the bus during office hours in Delhi that took place regularly at bus stops(cars were still a luxury then) was replaced by the unaccustomed ritual of queues imposed by authorities.Cartoonist Sudhir Dar pictured it in a pair of cartoons,one showing the passengers waiting patiently and peacefully in a long serpentine queue.The second one showed the furious pell mell charge of the crowd the moment the bus arrives,with arms and hand bags flailing and spectacles flying and the rugby-like scrum with the stronger ones holding down and striding over prostrate bodies of the meek who literally inherited the earth. Opposition Unity during the last decades brings back those memories to me.The difference being that then these cartoons had tickled my ribs and now they only evoke gloom.

Gloom because there is as yet no sound grasp of the dire and dreadful prospects awaiting us if the yearned-for unity collapsed. What the insouciance of Trump and scandalous apathy of the common people in America to his havoc spell out for us is the terrifying ease with which fascism can overtake and overwhelm the institutions of democracy.Imagine people accused of real or imaginary offences in America being just packed off to a prison in a foreign country under a savage tyrant to be tried and punished there.

We are already only a step away from that scenario.The Vice President of this republic has the nerve to declare in public that the Supreme Court by reviewing an obnoxious law that appears to have gone against basic constitutional rights has presumed on the legislative powers of Parliament! The SC has done so many times before during Congress rule.The Congress party was ruffled but had taken them with grace.After all a constitution is a constitution.It has got to prescribe legitimate limits of power,and institutions created by it must observe those limits.

But we have these days a ruling party and government that plainly believe in their divine right to override the constitutional limits.What it portends for our people is pretty obvious.The goal of such brazen ambitions is to reduce people with souls and voices that speak the language of their souls to automata.Whether they have enough to eat or not ”theirs’ not to reason why,theirs’ but to do and die.”They want millions upon millions of people alive only to do their bidding so that their cronies the tycoons may thrive,lord it over them and treat them as disposable humans.

Opposition Unity is desired,passionately and urgently,not merely to form governments and restore the essence of the constitution,but to ensure that the lives and souls of the vast numbers of Indians remain free and  at ease. Pity that the parties involved are so engrossed in their power games,their clever tricks to outwit one another,and their avid thrusts for loaves and fishes of office,are so lost in these petty games as to be totally oblivious of the impending disaster.No ideology seems to bind each of them.It is only a wrapping for their naked hunger for the coveted positions that leverages what their mundane dreams reach out for.

How else to explain the bitter rivalries that spring up the moment elections are over?The uncouth postures with which they confront one another as they jostle furiously for ministries, posts and and positions?The obsequiousness with which one who had once claimed the mantle of leadership of democratic allies accepted the position of a sarrap of the empire? The meekness of a dour veteran of the fight for the constitution as he gestures uncertainty for a little attention from the triumphant enemy? There are very very few among these crowds who realize it is a fight to the death.Compromise here does not mean dilution,but wholesale abandonment of the aims, desertion from the war to uphold the constitution.

The examples mentioned briefly in the beginning hold up with chilling certainty a determined lightning strike in days for the final assault on democracy.They make no secret of that.Their mentors,like the long-haired,bearded and pot-bellied saints astride on bulls,and their numerous storm troopers arrayed in several regiments in reserve are getting impatient.One is honestly not sure any more these days that armed forces have remained immune to the exponential growth of the virus.In any case at most it may be relied upon to remain neutral.If one thinks this alarum is exaggerated one is only living in a fool’s paradise.

The falling rate of profit has driven corporate tycoons to bolster it by ruthlessly jacking up prices.The state helps with alacrity by giving huge rebates on taxes they owe.But by the same token it is committed to levying higher and higher taxes on consumer goods and government services,including application forms for government jobs. Inevitably it leads to a steep fall in purchasing power of the masses and a further fall in profit. The numerous sops and aids it provides to needy and struggling masses are defrayed by taxes and tolls on the very same multitudes. It is beyond all doubts a spiralling vicious circle.

Fascism usually gains power by assuring monopolists uninterrupted flow of profits on investments.And it tirelessly harps on war as a means to boost national prestige
or restore national honour.Every now and then we are getting used to such veiled and dark muttering from serving or retired generals.Such wars tend to soothe the nerves of hard-pressed tycoons.

Given such tell-tale symptoms, Opposition parties are bound to close ranks and concentrate on the imperative aim:saving democracy to save the people.They must remember the unfulfilled promises of the constitution,the fear in the eyes of minorities,the wistful image of better prospects in the eyes of Dalits and the despair in the eyes of young unemployed,the dying fires in the eyes of millions who have lost hope.

The BJP has had experience of alliance and coalition since 1967,when as Jan Sangh it formed coalition governments in alliance with Lohiaite socialists.It has learnt how to tame and defang their partners into powerless hangers on.The Congress is a novice in this art.Neither is it quite clear what it wants in the long run from them.But there is no time now to dwell on such matters.It had better think of them as fellow-soldiers in the fight for democracy and the constitution.

It is fortunate that the present CJI is fully aware of the desperate situation and putting up a real and determined fight to save the constitution from clutches of fascists.Hence the howls of frustrated jackals against him rising in crescendo.Poor Chandrachud had upheld liberty and dignity of the citizen with some courage,though unfortunately he was indecisive when fascists were tearing and sewing up the constitution with grim determination.Thanks to his diffidence and ultimate surrender to the saffron flag he has now invited a formal complaint on his integrity.For in this fight the slightest sign of weakness is marked and targeted with vicious attacks from the pack.

Hiren Gohain is a political commentator