On Politics and Freedom

We had a debate on "pseudosecularism" in our ISPE class (Indian Social and Political Environment) today. What surprised me at the outset was the number of people who chose to oppose what they termed minority appeasement - over 20 out of 60 (less than 10 defended accomodation of minorities, and the rest committed to neither camp - I was in the last category). I used to be similarly surprised during arguments in DJ Sanghvi. I guess the inroads that the social right has made into the mindsets of even the English-educated, university attending group are quite deep.

As the debate progressed, it was quite clear that despite raising some valid points, the "rightists" did not do very well in convincing either the "leftists" or the "centrists" (I'm using these terms quite broadly for convenience's sake - there must be scores of variations in each individual's thoughts). The actual movement of people was small - about half a dozen moved from right to centre or centre to left and only one moved from centre to right, but the drift of the discussion was clear. Of course, the fact that the professor leant towards one side very plainly influenced the course of the debate.

I want to express my own views on the subject, but somehow cannot seem to get the correct words, even after trying for over an hour. Let's leave that for later. Suffice to say that I'm of the school which epouses Gandhi's thoughts of "We should not only be fair to our minorities, but also be generous towards them." But I'm also a very strong believer in the essential uniformity of human nature (i.e., pick 100 tribals from the Amazon and 100 Finns, and you will find that they have surprisingly very many similar attributes, due to the genes that all human share). So I think that if we give freedom to every citizen and procure for them a good education and basic health care to start with, historical differences will be automatically reduced to a large extent.

On a related but different note, the government defended section 377 of the IPC which essentially prohibits homosexuality. The government told the Supreme Court that, "Even if it is assumed that the rights of sexual minorities emanate from a perceived right to privacy, the right of privacy cannot be extended to defeat public morality which must prevail over the exercise of any private right." (Indian Express editorial "We're like them only?" dated December 2, 2005). As the newspaper rightly commented, it is not for the state to decide what is moral and what is not. In a free society, the state should limit itself to maintaining law and order, protecting the fundamental rights of citizens and promoting economic growth. As long as an individual's actions do not infringe upon the rights of other citizens, only in the rarest of circumstances is it acceptable to curb those actions. This paternalistic attitude of the govenment - assuming that a handful of officials at the top know what's best for the citizenry - hurt us economically and this is well-known. This same attitude is behind the bans on homosexuality, censorship of movies, closing of dance bars, etc. And we are socially and culturally much worse off for it.