With every passing year, there are recurring suspicions that Indian democracy is growing stronger. Countless newspaper articles and television debates periodically seek to remind us that the times are finally changing and so is the level of political debate in this country. Analysts wax lyrical at how the average voter these days has astutely started focusing on issues like development. I say rubbish. Every year a new ilk of politicians comes along and reminds us that we, as an electorate, are still the evolutionary equivalent of dinosaurs. The latest spate of events on the Indian political landscape, precipitated by the advent of that terrible quinquennial feature called elections, has proven just that. For instance, the government of the day believes that it will clinch the minority vote by narrowly appealing to that section's sentiment in preventing Salman
Rushdie from attending the Jaipur Literature festival (presumably inspired by the same logic that had driven another political outfit into preventing Maqbul Fida Hussain from living freely in this country). It is perhaps the same wisdom that has guided our leaders into outbidding each other to unconstitutionally guarantee a quota on the basis of religion in Uttar Pradesh.
Now I wouldn't be so naive as to assume that the very able politicians who constitute our government are out of touch with reality. If they have decided to deny a man of the stature of Mr. Rushdie (can there ever be a better poster boy for Indian literature than someone who has won the Booker of Bookers?) entry into India, they must have done so after rigorous political calculations and after having concluded that we as an electorate are indeed a sorry enough bunch of dolts to fall for such moves. So let's not get all excited and begin to blame the politicians - they are merely doing their jobs (which I presume, is to engage in politics, the worst kind of it). No, this is an indictment of Indian society. We get the governments we deserve. As long as we continue to pander to this rabble rousing and bigotry, there will be politicians falling over themselves to spin votes out of non-issues. It is perhaps the easiest way for them to get elected - without performing on the real issues that a mature democracy should actually be voting on. Shame on US!
