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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Sign and forward

Sign and forward

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published Published on Nov 5, 2009   modified Modified on Nov 5, 2009

Civil society” is a very loaded term. First of all, it implies that all those that are not part of it, are somehow uncivil, or possibly not part of society. Secondly, the use of the term implies that those covered by the term — and, truthfully, usually using it about themselves — have some particular worthiness that makes them able to more efficiently determine society’s direction than other members of the duly constituted electorate. (Most of whom have never heard of the term “civil society”.) This idea, that of particular worthiness, is the lie that has supported a thousand corrupt and self-serving oligarchies down the ages, and should never be trotted out without being refuted — especially when it is being used in the patently ridiculous manner in which it is currently being used, to support a frenzied campaign, created out of nothing, for Kiran Bedi as Chief Information Commissioner.

Of course, some will say that a group as varied as the one making a noise for Bedi — which includes, at last count, Aamir Khan the actor, Ramdev the yoga entrepreneur, activists Anand Kejriwal and Anna Hazare, and CEO-turned-intellectual Narayana Murthy — must be on to something. And surely they are representative? Mistaking variation for representation, however, is a mistake no first-year statistics or political science student would make. And, indeed, even could they somehow claim to be representative, it is also true that any workable democracy would require the executive to make decisions about appointments that are not subject to veto by self-appointed “representatives of the people.”

The actual details of the campaign for Bedi are fairly ludicrous. Not least is the claim that they are personally owed an explanation for the government’s choice — Khan, in his letter, says, with his accustomed graceful politeness, that “we would be grateful if it were disclosed how that person was found more suitable than Kiran Bedi.” (He does not disclose if a correspondingly polite explanation would require a personal phone call from the prime minister to him and all the other letter-writers.) But that sums up the absurdity of people who sign letters somehow thinking that through that act they can trump the decisions of a democratically-elected government. The only losers in this campaign are those who are getting a reputation for attaching their names to letters that, in the final analysis, betray how little they understand of how democracy works.


The Indian Express, 5 November, 2009, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sign-and-forward/537569/
 

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