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Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/the-court-of-public-opinion-patrick-french-19345.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The court of public opinion -Patrick French | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

The court of public opinion -Patrick French
-Manorama Online

In the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, four characters have differing recollections of the same event. Did the samurai stab himself with his wife's dagger? Which of them, if any, is telling the truth?

I felt like this after the session at last month's Jaipur Literature Festival during which Ashis Nandy said, among other odd things, “It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the OBCs and the Scheduled Castes and now increasingly Scheduled Tribes.”

No newspaper provided an accurate account of what happened that day; one magazine even reported the opposite of what was said. But a crucial, forgotten point about Nandy's statement is the reaction to it at the time, from the large audience and the other panellists.

I was on stage with him and four others, debating India's ‘Republic of Ideas'. It was a cold morning, and from time to time during the discussion, a man standing on a low roof nearby would attack a sheet of tin with a hammer.
After Nandy had said his line, the TV anchor Ashutosh (who avoids using a surname so as not to be classified by caste) upbraided him, saying it was a bizarre remark and typical of the way the elite in India talk about the downtrodden. This put-down received a loud cheer from the crowd.
Members of the audience were then given the opportunity to ask questions or—since this is India—to make statements. There were perhaps a dozen issues raised, and several of the listeners disputed what Nandy had said.

When the microphone returned to the panel, I observed that the way in which people discuss corruption among Dalits is different from the way they talk about corruption among the privileged, which is much more extensive. But people in positions of power have bag-men to look after their money, so they do not get noticed. I felt, in context, that Nandy's comments were ridiculous.

He ended with a slightly confusing clarification, saying, “I look at myself as a psychologist to the country, and I would not react,” and then made the case that in an “imperfect utopia”, poor people could use corruption as an equalising force.

Although many of us disagreed with what he said during the discussion, it did not occur to anybody that Nandy was doing anything other than being contentious. Having read the SC/ST Act in full, it is clear to me that he did not break the law. India's proud and long tradition of argumentative free speech was upheld that day. He had his say, and so did the rest of us.

Almost before the event was over, his admirers were spinning the line that he was trying to be amusing, or was being misinterpreted, or had not said what he had said at all! Like clockwork, a case was filed. One supporter told me his words had to be understood in the context of his long engagement with what she termed “the subaltern classes”.

None of the keen defenders, so far as I am aware, is a member of a scheduled caste or tribe, who remain nearly invisible in India's public dialogue. The message though was simple: Ashis Nandy is one of us, a reputedly progressive social thinker, so his words must be spun to mean something other than what they appeared to mean to most of the audience, and the panel at Jaipur that morning.

The fact that Nandy (and others) are now entangled in court cases is more absurd than his statement. But until the Indian government gives clear guidance on freedom of expression, rather than relying on the courts to judge each and every case, the problem will continue. Discordant voices will be silenced, and that would be a tragedy.