Over Government Action To Disrupt A Hunger Strike

CONTEXT

Aashay Sahay
‎"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." ~Voltaire.

Appalled by the government's Fascist actions. But then we all know where fascism comes from...

Sunday at 7:40am ·

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Sidharth Chauhan, Divya Venkatesh, Shamalie Jayatunge and 7 others like this.
- Prasun Bhaiya its imperative that a democratic government disallow undemocratic means of protest. fake hunger strikes being one of them
  Sunday at 9:32am ·
- Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea Threatening to kill yourself and cause mass unrest unless a government agrees to return money that it has no legal control over is not a "form of speech"
  Sunday at 9:40am · · 2 people
- Sayan Sanyal Hmm, wanted to know when Prasun Bhaiya would defend the Congress.
  Sunday at 1:31pm ·
- Aashay Sahay
  Hmm... A country bumpkin manages to do what many an educated cocktail-pomeranian has failed to. This is not an affront to a tyranny, but to every intellectual or otherwise elitist.
  
  A few rebuttals to indicate the nature of a "democratic government":
  
  1) If they deem the man a cheat, and I'm sure they must have known of his alleged exploits much before the events of last night... by negotiating and conceding to his demands even partially, they willingly traded off the nation's future to a cheat for the sake of their political future.
  
  2) A mid night crack down on thousands of people who can in no circumstance be alleged a part of whatever conspiracy they claim ramdev is hatching... when there could clearly have been alternative approaches barely reeks of democracy. The methodology applied is very apparently an unbridled attempt at intimidation.
  
  3) People must have equal opportunity and be deemed equal... but the state must deem anna hazare an authentic and thereby allow for that agitation but not ramdev... because he tangibly threatened the safety of every maggot who is leeching away the nation's innards.
  
  4) Talking about the black money... Philippines has already used the exact same method to retrieve black money stashed away by one of their ex ministers after he died while holding tones of black money...
  
  One must thoroughly go through the man's demands before criticizing... I am not in favor of either him or the demands essentially. But I am grateful as hell that SOMEONE is shaking things up...
  Sunday at 1:55pm ·
- Prasun Bhaiya
  ‎1) governments are self-preserving. it is this nature of theirs that causes them to undertake whatever welfare schemes they undertake. nothing can come without any cost so sometimes it is this self-preserving nature of govts that leads them to cut deals with such ppl to ensure their continuity. ppl evaluate govt's performance holistically and decide whether it has done more good than bad. 2) midnight crackdown was essentially to prevent a law and order situation. when we hold governments responsible for law and order its only fair that we give them some power and autonomy. 3) all people have equal opportunities. if ramdev thought he had an issue that will resonate with the masses he cud have contested elections. ppl like ramdev want to influence policy decisions without taking responsibility. besides govt screwing up during anna hazare's hunger strike isnt precedence for all future hunger strikes. 4) i m not saying that the govt is clean on the issue of black money but its important that selfish ppl trying to advance their own cause exploit these issues to gain popularity and undermine the due democratic process of the land which allows for protests but not arm-twisting.
  Sunday at 3:49pm ·
- Eashan Ghosh Oh man, here we go again.
  Sunday at 4:21pm ·
- Ritvik Bucky Chauhan
  Not that I have any particular loyalty to the parties involved here, or that I'm particularly passionate or well informed about the issues at hand. But there's one thing I want to say- it can't just be assumed that hunger strikes are illegitimate forms of political expression.
  
  In a country where we're allowed a plethora of means to express ourselves, hunger strikes are one of them and may be resorted to especially if, but not only when other forms have proved unsuccessful.
  
  The legitimacy of the hunger strike is derived from the cause or the people that the hunger striker represents & not from the action of the hunger strike.
  
  So if I were to hunger strike in my south bombay home, nobody would give a fuck, and my actions would not twist anybody's arm.
  
  Political interests generate political representatives (and not the other way around). So if there is a huge political interest against corruption, or black money, or British rule in India; the people might as well chose Baba Ramdev or Anna Hazare or Mahatma Gandhi to represent that interest. And I can draw attention towards that political interest in several ways, hunger strikes being one of them.
  
  Prasun Bhaiya, on the idea that people must be willing to take up responsibility of office if they want to have a political voice- I don't see why that stands. The right & ability to comment on political on-goings and add to public discourse is not something that gets mandated upon people & hence need not carry a burden of accountability. Again, in this case, the credibility & legitimacy of one's views are a self-check.
  Sunday at 6:43pm · · 1 person
- Aashay Sahay
  It is this incentive to self preserve that makes all forms of government progressively more tyrannical... hence there is a need for the society to use tools of leverage when the interests of the political class come in conflict with the society as a whole.
  
  And please don't tickle me with the term "selfish". Everyone is selfish. It is the idiot society that for some macabre lack of self respect deems the bow tie sporting faggots any more altruistic than the saffron sporting hobos. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter if Nehru was a lech or that gandhi might have been gay or whatever the hell their personal flaws may be... The cause must be achieved for the sake of the society.
  
  Also, there can be no arm twisting without legitimacy in the demand. mamata, Telangana-rao, teesta setalwad etc. have all gone on hunger strikes but the impacts vary from null to what we saw at ram leela maidan... that is only because any hunger striker is only as good as his cause is to the citizens of this country.
  Sunday at 8:21pm · · 1 person
- Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea
  I wonder why its not ok to blackmail people, but so long as you blackmail an "institution" which is supposedly tyrannical it's suddenly ok. Being able to say "Do X or I will kill myself isn't particularly legitimate irrespective of whether X is a good idea or not". It's even more shady when X isn't in the government's control and the motivations of the man running the strike are questionable.
  
  And even if you think this is acceptable speech, gathering a gigantic unruly mob of people and causing a public disturbance is certainly not Ok. I don't see a problem with the unlawful assembly being dispersed by force when they refused to move it. Ultimately, I don't care whether he kills himself or not, but causing public disturbances and blackmailing the govt when he has no actual intention of dying is not something the govt has to tolerate
  Monday at 2:35am ·
- Prasad Subramanyan
  No doubt all the arguments made above are laudable and all that. But I've always wondered, if you threaten to fast unto death, aren't you technically attempting suicide (certainly, you can claim the intention and the acts are being committed), and you're perpetrating an illegal act (blackmail) whilst doing so, AND if the government does indeed not have any control over it, you're essentially fasting unto death since the government cannot meet your demands, which means... he really is violating some law there.
  Monday at 7:33am ·
- Sayan Sanyal
  I'm sure the Government can force feed you through tubes if the situation gets that bad. The blackmail is about the suffering that goes along with fasting and how the public react to it. So the only thing over here is that public sympathy. And that can only arise when it is something the people want. Since democratic governments do need to listen to the people, I don't think it is completely illegitimate.
  
  Also, why should peaceful crowds be disbanded if they aren't harming anyone else?
  Monday at 10:59am ·
- Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea
  ‎@ Sayan: To say that people support it because there is a 65,000 person mob is silly. Yes, those 65,000 want it, but you are ignoring the enormous numbers of people who think its stupid, daft and wrong. The "people" include individuals whohave better things to do than spend days forming a giant crowd trying to blackmail the government. Your logic seems to take the "people" to mean only extremists who take radical measures to ram their view down other people's throats. A democratic government should not give extra precedence to those members of the public who are more vocal and coercive about their wishes.
  
  And Re your second point: Because waiting till a 100,000 person strong crowd actually starts trying to harm someone is a pretty disastrous idea.
  Monday at 11:45am ·
- Aashay Sahay
  Prabhat, sometimes 65,000 people does indicate public support. Specially when the only people opposing it are on tv talk shows or poker rooms. On issues like reservation you see both sides of the coin mobilized and on the streets.
  
  By your logic, for any protest to be valid, it must either be a very small group of people or the entire population...
  
  For any generation to be liberated, it does take extremists to go on hunger strikes, non co-operation movements and sometimes even all out agitation in order to route the hegemony of the ruling class. Most of us would remember this definition to pertain to the freedom struggle. And this isn't any different, the factors being debated in status quo are similar to some of the issues we had with the british raj. Even then there were a class of people (primarily the educated royalty) that deemed individuals like bhagat singh mere nuisance mongers. I am sure not more than 15% of the population was actively involved in the freedom struggle, but that doesn't mean they didn't have the tacit support of the crop cutters and everyone else that reaped the benefits of a free India.
  
  I am sure Nehru had a truck load of ulterior motives in doing what he did... but that doesn't make him any more or less legit than a ramdev.
  Monday at 12:09pm ·
- Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea
  To begin with I think it's a little preposterous to compare this to the freedom struggle since I can see thousands of relevant dissimilarities, namely there is no racial abuse here, there is no sovereign right being abused here etc.
  
  I find it very difficult to believe that this strike is about "routing the hegemony of the ruling class",given that Mr. Ramdev himself lives in luxury hotels and flies on a chartered jet while complaining about the plight of the masses. I also disagree that India has a "ruling class" any more than any other country in the world. Yes, there are rich, powerful and influential and powerful people here, but that's true of every society at every point of time. Unless you are saying that society is inherently evil I really don't spot the distinction here.
  
  Thirdly, a lack of opposition does not necessarily indicate widespread support. If Baba Ramdev had instead selected the issue of bad roads, I am sure there would not have been people marching in the streets protesting against his protest: That would not have made his protest right. Also when there is a large mob gathering, its unsurprising that people who don't agree with the mob are commenting on talk shows (and in poker rooms?) rather than boldly venturing onto the street to confront the mob.
  
  My major problem with this sort of protest is that it is unfairly asking the government to prioritize the opinions of a passionate/extremist minority over everyone else. Also I think you are super-imposing this class-struggle paradigm which is not necessarily what the majority of the people (even in the "non-ruling" class) are involved in.
  Monday at 12:23pm ·
- Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea
  Also, yes, I do think protests are only valid if an enormous percentage of the demographic is involved/supporting the protest. I think a government is elected and at that point you have to recognize that when a person is elected that is because you agree with his views on an AGGREGATE of issues and not on every single issue. I think that things would be chaotic if every group that had some problem with flawed government policy resorted to a hunger strike. And really the only difference would be the relative popularity of the person starting that strike vs that of Baba Ramdev. If he is so serious about this issue and really has that much support, let him contest the elections and demonstrate this support...
  Monday at 12:30pm ·
- Ritvik Bucky Chauhan
  So, we live in a representative democracy. Where we elect leaders to represent us when we agree with an aggregate of their views, like Prabhat said.
  
  But at the point at which the elected representatives fail to carry the voice of the people on issue(s) that they deem big-time and worthwhile, its only fair to have the people PARTICIPATE in the process if they wish to.
  
  Representation can often fail to deliver to the people what they want on certain major issues, this failure to execute the will of the people can happen in any democracy at all points of time, but it is right now in particular that it has happened to the degree and extent to which it has. People have 2 reasons to believe representation has failed:-
  
  1) We're bang in the middle of a 5 year term. So the ability of the masses to hold the government to account using the power of their votes doesn't exist presently. And people seem to have particularly short memories in democracies.
  
  2) There might be a disconnect between the representative & the people or between the people's representative & an appropriate actor. People can only lobby their own MP, but not all ministers or all parliamentarians.
  
  So, given that they can't use the tool of election to get the govt to execute their will. The people must be afforded other tools of leverage to guide the hand (twist the arm, if you like) of the government.
  
  Now, there are several tools of leverage that you may or may not call blackmail. The ones most commonly used are either POPULAR PROTEST where people take to the streets or GOING ON STRIKE where labour unions, govt doctors etc do not go to work. These tools are widely regarded as valid expressions of political will and are equally coercive or black-mailing as a hunger strike.
  
  The fact that you are coercing the govt should not be considered illegitimate, prima facie. Because you do need to have some negotiating power over them, sometimes.
  
  The efficacy or validity of your means is always contingent on that of the ends.
  
  So if people are taking to the streets willy-nilly, every single day for silly issues, the force of their tools becomes that much more de-legitimised. So if "every group that had some problem with flawed government policy resorted to a hunger strike," like Prabhat said, they're probably gonna be left to starve, and rightly so.
  Monday at 1:01pm · · 1 person
- Ritvik Bucky Chauhan
  Also, on there not being an opposition to the move, its perfectly fine. Because if people did have something better to do than protest, it is an expression of their political will that the issue at hand is really not that important to them. The same logic that is used to explain why its ok for the 45% of people who didn't turn up to vote don't need their political will expressed.
  
  And given that there is a systemic inertia against change, and that the ones who are powerful and influential are the ones who oppose the movement, it should not be so concerning an issue that there is such over whelming mass support for the hunger strikers.
  Monday at 1:06pm ·
- Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea
  Ritvik: 1) This is a bit of a strawman when you talk abt protesting abt silly issues; there are dozens of serious issues, and there will still be chaos if people protest for each of those, also not working is very different from directly blackmailing the government through steps as emotive as killing yourself.
  
  2) This is not like non-voting. You have to vote once every 5 years. I am not willing to take to the streets every time some idiot launches a protest; its absurd to say that I should be ok with all these hunger strikes simply because I don't register my opposition to such tactics in a public forum.
  
  3) I am yet to see any concrete evidence that the vast majority actually support Baba Ramdev. This is just being assumed by you and Aashay as per this "class-struggle" paradigm, but I am not sure that millions of people actually feel so strongly about this.
  Monday at 1:28pm ·
- Aashay Sahay
  ‎18000 farmers commit suicide in a year, Rs 58,000 crore worth of crops was wasted last year alone due to lack of dispensation infrastructural, 200 million people don't have food to eat, over a million people die every year due to lack of medical care, the details just keep rolling on... and these short comings aren't because the government never invested in any sort of solution; but rather because of systematic and tiered embezzlement of the allocated funds.
  
  1.5 trillion USD of black money is stashed away in the swiss accounts which is roughly 13 times our foreign debt.
  
  One would have to be one hell of a tough nut not to feel the need or the existence of a class struggle for this issue...
  Monday at 6:18pm ·
- Ajay Kumar
  Also in India every day 50,000 people get lifted out of poverty, our armed forces are one of the best in the world, our dirty-float of the Rupee always works for our benefit and our growth rate s a 8%+. We have almost eradicated polio and w...See More
  Monday at 10:22pm ·
- Ajay Kumar Also that 1.5 Trillion of so called black money in the swiss banks, if it is brought back to India you can KISS the Rupee Value GOODBYE and thus with the deflation that will happen kiss the 8% growth rate goodbye. It's just not sound economics to inject 1.5 Trillion into the Economy. All governmnt's need debt, its the only way the currency has value.
  Monday at 10:24pm ·
- Ajay Kumar governments.*
  Monday at 10:24pm ·
- Ajay Kumar But then again, if we can fuck up the economy to stop someone's fast its a great moral victory na?
  Monday at 10:25pm ·
- Ajay Kumar
  My maid's daughter just got a job at Infosys, she was educated by free public education by the TN Government and subsidized college education by the central govt. Her family just went from lower income class to middle class. Hmmm. The class struggle in India is horrible na? I mean poor people are not moving up the social ladder at all. With what the number of small business that are started everyday through loans provided by the nationalised banks. The poor keep getting richer its bad for the class struggle no?
  Monday at 10:28pm ·
- Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea Aashay, there may be a "need" for a class struggle if the poor folks were rational enough to realize this- my point is that there ISNT one going on. You are interpreting it as a class struggle because you perceive the need for one.
  Yesterday at 12:28am ·
- Aashay Sahay Must check top left corner of today's Times of India Editorial section.
  23 hours ago ·
- Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea link?
  20 hours ago ·
- Karthik Sivaram
  Heroes of the the mystical 'civil society' aren't born but created. Serves the Government right for lending credence to Anna Hazare and his antics. I'm convinced the under lying issue here is neither corruption nor black money. All this is a manifestation of the political impatience of the upper middle class. Since elections and voting isn't sexy enough for them, they take to more ostentatious methods. Empirical proof of this is the fact how these movements haven't found resonance in Kerala and Bengal, where even the middle class votes. Looks like the Government has learnt its lesson though, they way they are trying to character assassinate Anna Hazare and his next of kin. I'm just secretly hoping, sensing the opportunity, Arundathi Roy, as she always does, goes on a hunger strike and for once we actually see somebody actually fast unto death. I don't think any of these clowns have the mental fortitude to die of starvation, which takes a long time and is extremely painful.
  13 hours ago · · 1 person
- Karthik Sivaram Also, why call it fascist. A much more apt adjective is idiotic.
  13 hours ago ·
- Ritvik Bucky Chauhan
  Gotta agree with you there Karthik, the middle class over the years has viewed the politicians in our country through a hopelessly cynical lens.
  
  This attitude of their's stems from a perception that they have of Indian politics being a game of horse-trading and back-scratching, wrought with redtape and needless bureaucracy as opposed the image of bright young leaders carrying the voice of their people.
  
  To be honest, a lot of the people getting behind the protests, sending mass SMSes and BBMs, organising candle light marches (like one in IITB during Anna's fast) have really no idea what is going on. And its the feeling changing SOMETHING that excites a lot of people.
  
  But we must realise that this characterisation of the middle class, or the people getting behind the hunger strikers is a characterisation that we've conceived & is necessarily a value judgement being made on the intentions & solid-grounded-ness of the political interest of the masses.
  
  Given that the political interest exists, its legitimate for it to be expressed, in this way, or in any of the other ways that we've discussed. No one is to judge that the people's political interests are unfounded, even though I might personally believe so.
  11 hours ago ·
- Sayan Sanyal Why does Karthik Sivaram only parrot Manu Joseph? I mean almost word by word.
  11 hours ago · · 3 people
- Karthik Sivaram It isn't just Manu Joseph saying it, its all over the papers in Kerala. Surprisingly except for the Lavlin case, corruption generally is much lower in Kerala. Also, I read a very interesting piece about P J Thomas, the ex CVC.
  9 hours ago ·
- Aashay Sahay In India, the politicians scam the people. In kerala, people scam each other...
  7 hours ago ·
- Karthik Sivaram No, we are too literate. We just scam everybody else, read Ayurveda, God's Own country and Backwaters.
  7 hours ago ·
- Aashay Sahay
  The middle class' perception aside... the political workings in our country have become way more macabre than the public imagination can perceive.
  
  Besides in a true liberal and libertarian state all sorts of expression must be accommodated. And we do it, when it comes to effigy burners, gilanis, even people like musharraf who has waged war on us... but somehow this time it is just not cool.
  
  It might be true that Ramdev is "more selfish"... but there are two things at the end of the that must be noted for the sake of understanding the locus standi of our nation. First the way the government has tried to behead ramdev via brute force and cbi, it and excise investigations etc. Second that the perception of a significant part of the educated populace deems anna to be more legit than baba despite having significantly lesser mass support because: A) He wears white clothes B ) Because his supports generally speak in english C) Because yoga is way more good for jokes than gandhianism (apparently gandhigiri must be a respectable business) D) Because He doesn't command enough corwds to really scare anybody... not even the intellectually elite end of the middle class (which fears pretty much any conglomerate of poor people like labor unions).
  5 hours ago · · 1 person
- Karthik Sivaram
  As I said, the Government shot itself in the foot by condoning Anna Hazare and his antics. I don't think the Govt. should condone hunger strikes. I don't think its a form of expression guaranteed under the Freedom of Speech and expression. Along the lines of why a hate speech is banned and what Prabhat said. If the issue resonates with the people and if it resonates with the people the Government will obviously have to take notice, I don't see the need for you to 'blackmail' the Government into listening. The only reason you'll need it, is if the issue doesn't resonate with the people, hence you package it in order to resonate with the people, then it is illegitimate, analogus to buying votes. If you believe the issue is valid but doesn't have public support, then with in the context of a democracy, unfortunately, it has no place.
  
  The Gandhian effect, of anything and everything Gandhi did in his life,gains legitimacy by default combined with the sheer drama-worth, and boy how we love drama, makes hunger striking hugely powerful in India. So powerful that they very well take the spotlight away from the issue itself. Hence in the wrong hands it could very well be disastrous. So in principle I believe the Government was right to quash the gathering, implementation left a lot to be desired. Baba Ramdev is, thankfully, a benign example of this can be misused. By lending legitimacy to Hazare, the Government dug itself a huge grave. They ought to have acknowledged his cause and condemned his methods. Since they glorified it, they necessarily now have to listen to every idiot. Although, it might seem stupid right now, I'm optimistic that the message has been sent out loud and clear that the Government will not tolerate such insidious methods. If it does, it was worth suffering through the circus.
  
  P.S. - Check out Chidambaram's justification. Apparently the Delhi Police had intel that Baba Ramdev, himself, was under grave danger, hence it was also with the intention of guaranteeing his safety.
  
  P.P.S (No pun intended)- Also, the opposition is trying its best to look as asinine as the Government. Dancing at Rajghat, even if to patriotic songs, what the fuck were they thinking.
  4 hours ago ·