Is ideology necessary for governance?
Ideology makes it unnecessary for people to confront individual issues on their individual merits. One simply turns to the ideological vending machine, and out comes the prepared formulae. And when these beliefs are suffused by apocalyptic fervor, ideas become weapons, and with dreadful results. - Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology.
The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties is a collection of essays published in 1960 by Daniel Bell, who described himself as a "socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture".
AAP has made an ideological statement with the topi.
A critique of the vision document of AAP from a communist says:
"What is astonishing is that a political party hoping to take the reins of power is mute on the global processes, particularly those advancing the tentacles of neoimperialism, which are inextricably influencing our politics and our society. Is it just a parochial vision or is it silent endorsement of those processes, which are welcome to the class base of the AAP? With such complete silence on the basics, the compensation is found in excessive articulation of the trivial. How else can one explain an entire three pages of the 20-page document being devoted to spelling out how the party propaganda will be carried out, how the candidates for elections will be chosen, and how the elected members of the party will live." -- From
‘Myopia, Distortions and Blind Spots in theVision Document if AAP’, S.P. Shula in EPW, February 16, 2013
Defining values of an ideology is an ongoing process. Marxist ideology, as propounded by Marx and Engels, lacked any ethical guidance for an individual. The ideology viewed individuals as insignificant in the historical process of dialectical materialism. Lenin and Stalin in Soviet Union and MaoTse Tung in China had to fill this lacunae in Marxist ideology to some extent.
On the other hand, India's freedom movement from its genesis emphasized personal values and ideals and largely ignored economic and political issues. It may surprise some to know that 'Early to bed and early to rise' was a value propagated by India's freedom movement. During pre-independence India, 'prabhat pheri' (early morning rally) was a common activity of the freedom movement activists. Such rallies were seen as wake-up calls for the society. The rallies used to often culminate in a small public meeting or prayer meeting. Even after independence, for many years 'prabhat pheris' continued to be taken out as part of Independence Day and Republic Day celebrations. Even today, the main function in Delhi on the occasion of Independence Day or Republic Day begins at 8 a.m. As India moves away from the values and ideals of freedom movement, sooner or later there will be a demand to change to more convenient timings.
Waking up early was not the only value propagated by Indian freedom struggle's leaders. Their ideals covered almost every aspect of human life. One might wonder -- what has freedom struggle got to do with, for example, sexual morality. Yet, when one looks at any major political movement anywhere in the world, one finds that the movement insisted on its members adopting some values and ideals or in other words -- having a character or personality that, in due course, became the identity of the movement.
Many of these values and ideals are internal, but an ideology also needs some external symbols. Mussolini's brown shirted revolutionaries, Gandhi cap, blue jeans worn in sixties and seventies by flower children - are typical examples of use of dress code to build and strengthen the identity of an ideological movement.
External symbols and internal values and ideals, also called character, play a very important role in the growth of an ideology. On one hand, they facilitate interaction between followers of the ideology. On the other hand, they foster a community feeling between the followers leading to building of personal bonds with each other and with the organization acting as the flag-bearer of the ideology. The facilitation of interaction is like two fax machines being able to communicate since both follow a common technical protocol. The ease of interaction between persons having faith in the same ideology takes place because there is mutual trust and understanding. Once the interaction starts the natural process of growth of bonding takes place. In due course the bonds and linkages acquire a life of their own.
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The prosperity of the colonial masters inspired hopes and raised expectations across the world. Colonial powers and their intellectuals have been prescribing the model that brought them prosperity to the countries that were impoverished by their looting, little realizing non-sustainability of the model. Democracy and capitalism were supposed to be twin magic keys to prosperity; but have failed to deliver the promised kingdom of heaven on earth for the poor. Communism has failed even more with every communist country degenerating into a morass of inefficiency and ineptitude.
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The intellectual class has failed to recognize their own failure in keeping the skeleton and lifeblood of different ideologies in a healthy state. Communists treated their intellectuals in the same fashion as Catholic Church did -- using them as coolies of knowledge. In democratic countries, there has been a tendency to eulogize democracy to such heights that a critical evaluation of democracy has been well nigh impossible.
Is it not surprising that in the past one and a half centuries there has been no fundamental development in the notion of democracy? Modern intellectuals face a challenge of combining the advantages of a notion of divine with a political ideology. No, they do not seem to have even tried to face this challenge.
--Anil Chawla
18 August 2004 Understanding ideology -- the paradigm ofpolitics
Congress Party never had an ideology excepting for the topi promoted by Gandhi during the freedom movement. This topi has been hijacked by the AAP for making fools of the Delhi electorate. The local idiom says: to anoint one with a topi means to fool or dupe that person. India's topi moment has arrived with the AAP topi.
When Ram Manohar Lohia promoted the 'Socialist' ideology by forming the Socialist Party, it was a revolt against the Communist ideology which was drifting away from national interests and moving towards the visionary comintern, the communist international.
India since Independence has not had the luxury of development of political parties governed by ideologies such as 'labour' or 'liberal' or 'conservative' labels. Indian political science philosophers were satisfied with the use of terms like 'left' or 'right' to define the role of the state in public affairs -- one assigning the leading role to the state and the other demanding the removal of the state from the shoulders of the citizens.
This tendency is well mirrored in American politics predominantly dominated by a two-party system called 'Democrats' and 'Republicans'. Both are wedded to the ideology of the primacy of the marketplace but one group sees a dominant role for the state and the other sees no role for the state except in matters of national defence and the nation's monetary system.
No such ideological churning has occurred in India since 1947 when the country gained independence from the colonial regime and faced the mess of a truncated geographical entity with trifurcated states called Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. This trifurcation has, in effect, left a festering sore which may be called the 'muslim' problem as yet unresolved in defining their identity within the nation-state subject to a uniform civil code and absolute adherance and loyalty to the nation. The 'muslim' problem is, but a problem torn between sectarian religious identity and mainstream national identity.
Built upon this massive divide and social identity tention, parties have built up ideologies based on false identities such as the 'dravidian' in Tamil Nadu or 'dalit' in Uttar Pradesh and other pockets dominated by the Bahujan Samaj Party, or collaboration with 'muslim' vote banks as demonstrated by Socialist Party in Uttar Pradesh which now rules the populous state. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress Party founded as a revolt against the Congress hegemony has successfully countered the communist ideology in West Bengal and paid the price comparable to the Socialist Party in Uttar Pradesh of a coalition with 'muslim' sentiments mixed up with the ideology of ridding the state of any power to confiscate land to support private sector at the cost of the farmer-tenant as the master of the soil, exemplified by the Singur movement.
Both BJP ruling in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Chattisgarh and Congress (and in coalition with its allotrops like NCP or JD-U) in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka have no ideological differences which distinguish them. In a way, both BJP and Congress have no ideological baggage to carry.
Congress rule at the Centre for an extended period initially started with a hybrid socialistic pattern and drifted towards the free markets and promotion of private sector, withdrawing the state from investment initiatives while still controlling the flow of funds for the investment initiatives of the private sector by doling out sectoral allocations under a five-year plan. Federal system has also not been allowed to evolve with the Centre exercising the role of a donor of grants to the States through allocations of central funds which constitute the major segment of the nation's GDP and leaving the States with little initiative to harness funds on their own initiative. Congress has tended to play the Big-brother role in the dole-outs to the States. Thus, even federalism within a unitary state as an ideology has no clarity in execution. Panchayati Raj initiative is a virtual non-starter with virtually no powers vested with the Panchayat institutions for development project initiatives.
In summary, the functioning of the Constitution is in a mess, chalta hai situation resulting in the accumulation of looted wealth by the criminalised politicians and most of this wealth has been routed through devious methods of hawala transactions and Participatory Notes to be stashed away into tax havens abroad, thus depriving these funds to be used by the nation's financial system.
If there has to be an ideology to define BJP which is distinct from that of Congress, it has to relate to this: restitution of illicit wealth which the nation's which should be brought back to the nation.
This will at least define BJP as a nationalist party concerned with the nation as the ideology while steering clear of -isms which end up as cliches like socialism or communism or feudalism or liberalism and find expression in pseudo-secular politics or pseudo-draidian-aryan mirages as in Tamil Nadu, to avoid resolution of the 'muslim' problem with resoluteness, not compromising on the primacy of the ideology of the nation.
In summary, BJP has to announce an answer to the vacuum left by the disintegrated Congress, a vacuum sought to be occupied by nakshals like AAP. The answer should not be casteism or dravidian divide or pseudo-secular divide, but swaraj for the nation, true independence.
This will announce that the 2014 polls is a freedom struggle to re-establish the identity and primacy of the nation.
Nation should be the answer to the ideology question. The role models for the leader of the nation should be Shivaji and Netaji. In Hindustani language Netaji means: "Respected Leader". They are the national heroes who laid down their lives in defence of the nation. This will be a tribute: Jai Jawan. Jai Bharat. sending a message to the neighbours who may harbour evil intent to usurp part of India.
This, I think should be the response to the topi moment. Let saffron scarves adorn the millions who throng to the meetings of Narendra Modi feeling proud in their national identity as Bharatiya in memory of a nation which has the potential to lead and create an Indian Ocean Community among 59 nations along the Indian Ocean Rim and celebrating Angkor Wat as the largest Vishnu Mandiram which evokes the memory of Bharatiya ancestors who participated in the formation of the Hinduised states of South-east Asia (the phrase used by the French savant, George Coedes in the title of his book which is a tour de force in historical studies of the region). As Swami Vivekananda said, India has a destiny to fulfil and the next leader of the nation should vow to fulfil that destiny of leading India to the 25% of the global wealth which she had at the turn of the millennium in 0 Common Era (as noted by Angus Maddison).
This goal set for the leader to achieve will provide meaning to the nation of India as ideology.
If BJP wants to announce a Vision document to counter AAP's sloppy vision document or Congress' platitudes in their manifesto or fragmenting parties like SP or BSP or TCP or NCP or JDU or BJD,
I suggest that this goal for the nation as ideology should become the central and operative slogan to rid the nation of the rotten Congress rule.
Enough of Congress rule. Enough. Congress, quit ruling. Let us reclaim the nation from listless usurpers and opportunists for abhyudayam (social welfare) and attain Purna Swaraj.
Kalyanaraman