[Reader-list] Some comments on the present

[Jeebesh]

Dear All,

Have been thinking that If we drop "corruption" and "middle class"  we  
may find some other way to understand what we sense unfolding from  
Ramila grounds and television studios.

The term middle class has bloated so much that it now holds within it  
Narayan Murthy to Shekhar Gupta via Nandan Nilekani to a student in  
Sonepat to all people in this list and on facebook.  And on the other  
hand corruption seem to have bloated much further in which commissions  
from infrastructure deals (in lakhs of crores), commissions for arms  
deals, someone delaying papers, to admission costs, to a hawker buying  
some uninterrupted time in the street (20 rupees) is all melted down.

Could one start from some other point?

In the many assertions around UID's efficacy, it was stated that the  
State needs to know its "poor" through a population registry. Here  
poor and population replaced people and the idea that State is not- 
knowledgable about its population was put forward by State and its  
various crusaders. The feeble argument against it through ideas of  
"citizens right to privacy" somehow did not look meaningful to these  
crusaders. It was clear to them that "poor" and "population" accounts  
for an adequate language to speak to the governed and is without  
consequence.

What is this lack of knowledge about the "poor" on which the whole  
edifice of the spectacle of UID was launched?

The question could be maybe asked in another way:

What did the "poor" or the "population" hold back from the State over  
the last century that needed to be brought into visibility and  
legibility?

This stages an enormous battle over ways of life and its tacit  
knowledge in our times. Much more substantial than what was  
encountered from the mid 19th century to the end of the last century.

Now lets look at another plane. The question of land assembly for  
industry. Capital needs substantial territory to produce and  
accumulate. It cannot rest with rent-based assembly. It needs a  
coverage that is long term and all plots are contiguously available to  
it. This can only be achieved by the State apparatus through its legal  
curative and punitive modalities. This has not been easy as we all  
have seen in the last decade. The Special Economic Zone law was passed  
by parliament without a parliamentary standing committee going through  
it. And we are told now that the standing committee is at the heart of  
parliamentary form as it receives petitions, recommendations, and  
makes amendments to the bill keeping in mind plurality of interest and  
the long view.

Land Acquisition, Special Economic Zones and UID all open up a space  
where we can start examining the vexed relation between sovereign and  
the people and capital and its accumulative drives.

The division of labour that the State and Capital had performed was  
based on an idea of moral authority of the state and its knowledge of  
its subject. Capital on the other hand performed meritocracy, growth  
and innovation. This was sought to be best mediated by a form of  
democracy as it consolidated after world war 2. Through elections and  
welfare this seemed to have stabilized into a legible system, a well  
oiled machine to some, who thought this would be eternal.

The last two decades witnessed the fusion of Capital and State  
displayed with impunity. No fear, no danger, no restraints, only  
frenzied ambition. As if both have risen above life and its uncertainty.

Everywhere in the world, there is a clear dissipation of the "moral  
authority" of the state, its claim about knowing its subjects, and its  
ability to protect plurality of interests. This dissipation will only  
accelerate as the "state/soveriegn debts" increase and consumes more  
and more of the global surplus. (Now it is 41 trillion, a 69% of  
global GDP, added 19 trillion in the last 10 years). Within its own  
territory "harsh measures" will be launched along with "stimulus  
packages" to some in hope of an eventual balancing point in some  
future date.  And externally sword fighting, scramble and occasional  
gobbling of resources or states will be in view.

 From 16th August onwards the events in Delhi ambushed the state  
functionaries and the political dispensation at the helm of affairs.  
This has opened up the question of moral authority in a substantial  
way. The reduction of the idea or practice of democracy to the events  
of elections exposed itself.

Who can rule, how will it rule, why at all rule and who decides on the  
future? These questions usually get asked in the name of the people.  
The fracture deep inside the contradiction - of the people and for the  
people - keeps reasserting and agitates. This is how the space called  
in by democracy asserts and extends.

But we do know it never gets asked directly. It is a question that  
occurs through events, dispersions, reversals, leakages, inchoateness,  
seepage, invasions, ploys, disguises. It travels through sentiments,  
conscience, instincts. Once forces have been released they will search  
options, flows, and gradients.

My guess is we are in a moment that will be confusing about the  
meaning and purpose of rule.  Sediments of consensus stand cracked,  
leaky and eroded. The event horizon of this looks fuzzy.  It  
definitely has exhausted the established formulas. It was funny to see  
Shekhar Gupta do a walk the talk with Aruna Roy. He has been for the  
last 7 years doing a shrill campaign against her and all civil society  
usurpers of power. So we know these are intersecting and colliding  
times.

Things will move with clamor, reversals, failures, mistakes. It may be  
worthwhile to take time to undertake a fresh rethinking of all that is  
at stake.

warmly
jeebesh