Militarism strikes at the root of democracy

Swami Agnivesh
Arya Samaj scholar and social activist

HYPE is the order of the day. Hype is created to suppress rational and factual thinking. Without thinking, there is no meaningful exercise of freedom of choice. Without such an exercise of choice, ‘the will of the people’ gets distorted and the temple of democracy is desecrated. 

Beginning with the electorally overused ‘surgical strike’ in 2016 to the Pulwama attack and its aftermath, the improvisation of a sinister situation has been in the offing. It is described best as militarism, which involves the projection of the Army as a national cult. Militarism is not merely a matter of having a large Army, armed to the teeth and ready to function as a chillingly efficient killing machine. Militarism implies the fetishisation of the Army — a dogmatic object of worship — that makes it an anti-national offence to not concur readily with what the Army states. It disallows citizens and political parties from examining the factual merits of the versions given to them, which are required to be taken on trust. Pushed to the extreme, this makes the Army, not the will of the people, the decisive element in national affairs. 

There is no doubt that the services of our armed forces should be duly recognised and celebrated. However, no constituent of a democratic republic — neither the State nor the Army, neither the judiciary nor Parliament — has the right to rob citizens of their fundamental right to think and speak for themselves. Militarism suppresses this right. Militarism is, therefore, incompatible with the working principles of democracy and its republican ideals. 

The foremost casualty in militarism is ‘equality of opportunity’ that political parties are entitled to in a democracy. In this scenario, spiced up by hysterical patriotism and nationalism, the armed forces cease to be a neutral organ. The forces come to be identified in popular perception with the ruling dispensation. Attempts are made to project this deception. The morale and bravery of the armed forces are attributed to the Prime Minister who, in his own words, is a chowkidar (watchman) who always remains chowkanna (alert). The Army is projected as an extension of the heroic will of the Prime Minister, who is increasingly perceived as its Supreme Commander. That there is the President of the republic who is meant to be seen in this role is forgotten. 

In this ambience of militarism, the ruling party enjoys a huge advantage. It is free to craft or project military actions to further its electoral interests. No room is left for neutral citizens or opposition parties to question either the narrative or its partisan intent. Everything is required to be taken on trust, no questions asked. Even asking for evidence — which is the basic right of those who are required to believe what is dished out to them — is decried and stigmatised as ‘insulting the Army’ and as a ‘crime against the nation’, expressed picturesquely as ‘bringing a smile on the face of Pakistan.’ 

It is a cause for concern that the grave peril this holds out to our democratic culture goes unnoticed. In a democracy, the public sphere is envisaged necessarily as a domain of freedom and equality. Configuring the democratic space to favour one player and handicap the rest distorts and undermines democracy. If this is not avoided zealously, democracy could degenerate into dictatorship. The hallmark of dictatorship is that the ‘official version’ is the last word on everything. No dissent or deviation is tolerated. 

Democracy mandates that if and when anything is introduced into the public sphere — such as putting out a version of the bombing of terrorist camps in Balakot — citizens and parties are free to examine the reported version factually and rationally, and come to their own conclusions. You cannot project a version of any event into the democratic space and intimidate citizens that unwillingness to lap it up is ‘anti-national’. Yet, this is exactly what the Prime Minister and his war strategists are doing. It is imperative that we recognise the threat this ploy poses to the very survival of democracy. 

If something is so sacrosanct that it should not be exposed to the irreverence and raucousness of public discussion, the right thing to do is to withhold it from the public space. This principle is zealously followed vis-a-vis various aspects, say, of the Rafale deal. If is, of course, hard to understand why the price of these fighter jets bought with the taxpayers’ money should be kept a secret from them. It is an insult to democracy to suppress inconvenient questions about the issue. 

Ironically, such an ambience is conjured and heightened on the eve of the General Election. It is too much of a coincidence to seem innocently accidental. The Election Commission — if it is to conduct meaningfully a ‘free and fair’ election later this year — needs to take note of this sinister distortion of the democratic space. Even more importantly, the citizens of India need to see through and rebuff such stratagems aimed at vitiating the spirit and integrity of the forthcoming elections. They will let Indian democracy down if, drugged by propaganda psychedelics, they reward those who cozen them into voting in ways that they would not have done otherwise.