Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caught the media’s attention, it would not be out of place to talk about the other war; the one being waged by the Indian government against its own people. Now, don’t fly off the handle. This is not some 'anti-national' rant by an opposition party or the imagination of some 'presstitutes' or the 'seditious' propaganda of some 'urban Naxals'; the National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval himself has spelled it out: Civil society is the new frontier of war.
The NSA said this at the passing out parade of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy in Hyderabad last November. Addressing newly-minted IPS officers he said, “It is the civil society that can be subverted... that can be divided, that can be manipulated to hurt the interests of a nation. You are there to see that they stand fully protected. Police officers, therefore, are not only involved in nation-building but national security.’’
Doval need not have burdened IPS officers with the onerous responsibility of national security. IAS officers have already taken the lead in doing this; as district magistrates they crack the skulls of protesting farmers, who are anyway disguised 'Khalistan is'; they turn undertakers to cremate a rape victim in the dead of night; the devil quoting the scriptures will not be as convincing as a babu citing the Constitution. It is another matter that IAS officers fail spectacularly in mundane tasks such as ensuring edible mid-day meals for poor children or sterilising stray dogs.
Actually, IPS officers need not be given lessons on identifying subversives and anti-nationals. They can see one in an 84-year-old Jesuit priest with Parkinsons; they can see one in a Kerala journalist travelling to Hathras to cover the rape and murder of a Dalit girl; they can see a 'deshdrohi' in a respected academic who gave up her US citizenship to work for the tribals; they even saw one in an IAS officer-turned-activist for communal harmony. They can detect sedition in a stringer’s report about corruption in the midday meal scheme. They sensed it in a standup comedian’s act even before he could deliver a line.
Infact, India’s civil servants aided by Israeli technology such as Pegaus or face-recognition software have made Orwellian surveillance passe. Our big brother is not only watching all you do, he is listening to every word you say or write. He can even put words in your mouth or in your laptop depending on what grade of a 'libtard' you are. Then you can enjoy the state’s hospitality for the next five years while convincing the courts that you were not waging war against the country. Meanwhile, the mainstream media will either slander you or just murmur about an undeclared Emergency.
Coming back to Doval, this is what Aruna Roy – progenitor to the Right to Information movement and someone who joined the IAS the same year he joined the IPS – had to say about him: “Doval neither bothered to define the civil society he wants his officers to be at war with, nor explained what gave him the authority to declare a 'fourth-generation war' on our own people. He should explain himself more, but it is a theory that legitimises efforts of the political executive and the private sector as nation-building, and paints opposition or adversarial advocacy by organised citizens' groups (civil society) as undermining development and nationalism.’’
Roy said that the NSA clearly wants to short-circuit the democratic, social and development safeguards in the Constitution. Now, this is just a verbose way of saying what stand-up comic Vir Das said: “I come from an India which has the largest working population under 30 on this planet but still listens to 75-year-old leaders with 150-year-old ideas.’’
The present dispensation is so hung up on a Congress-'mukt' Bharat, and now of an opposition-'mukt' Bharat, that it is willing to do anything for it; the Election Commission’s hurried and unseemly disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs from Delhi on the office of profit charges, which was rejected by the SC; the toppling of governments by buying out MLAs; the selective hounding of opposition leaders by the ED. The promise of an India free of 'bhay, bhookh aur bhrashtachar' is long forgotten. In fact, there is such a huge gap between promise and performance that no amount of 'jumlas', jingoism or jugglery can patch it up. So, the best way to divert attention is the politics of hatred: 'Desh ke gaddaronko…', Dharam Sansad and 'Godse Zindabad' trending on Gandhi Jayanti. Then, who can forget the UP government’s move to name and shame anti-CAA protesters while gangsters such as Vikas Dubey were being wooed. Such is the bigots' hatred for independent journalists that on February 11, last year, a little-known YouTube channel posted a video calling for five of them to “be hanged”.
Already, Akbar is being compared to Hitler and roads named after the 'Islamic invaders' are being renamed. It is another thing that the BJP is doing to JNU what the Islamic invaders did to Taxila. No one’s asking whether the flight of global capital from India has anything to do with us managing our monetary policy like Mohammed bin Tughlak.
Activists are derided as 'andolanjeevis' promoting 'foreign destructive ideology'. After secularism and patriotism, human rights too are sought to be redefined. Speaking at the 28th Foundation Day of the National Human Rights Commission last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that human rights matter to people only after their basic needs are met. Considering the reference in which these statements are made, they are just a dog-whistle. The real FDI then is 'fear, deception and intimidation'.
Thank God for little mercies such as the Parliament where opposition members such as Mahua Moitra can speak about the seven early signs of Fascism evident in India – nationalism searing into national fabric, disdain for human rights in government, subjugation and control of mass media, obsession with national security, religion and government intertwined in the country, disdain for intellectuals and the arts, and erosion of independence in the electoral system.
In the 75th year of India’s independence, many Indians live in fear and in the resignation of a predatory state which can fault them on virtually anything – food, faith and even certified facts. This is the same India where Tagore dreamt of awaking a country 'where the mind is without fear'.
So, when the Ukrainian envoy to India urged Modi to intervene, one cannot but wonder when our government will stop waging a war on its citizens.
(The writer is an independent journalist based in Mumbai and writes on civil society, law enforcement, environment and urban development. He tweets @anilsingh703.)
