The Challenges for Liberal Grassroots Movements

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIfQ-rkTsYw Duration: 358.3s

Jayaprakash Narayan (00:04): Yazad, if you recall, even the word liberalism was hardly known in India at that time. And if people understood the meaning of liberalism, most people considered that as a dirty word because the state was the presiding deity. It was accepted that the state was right, despite the economic reform out of compulsion — partial reform, I would say, in 1991 — was not out of conviction, remember. Though, we must compliment Mr. and Dr. Manmohan Singh for doing it honestly to the limited extent they attempted it. They did not do it in, you know, in patches. They actually did it sincerely, though very partially. But despite that, the state was still god in the minds of the people. So the biggest challenge for me was twofold. The first was, politics was rejected by the middle classes, the educated people, and the and the youth, particularly the urban people. They thought it was dirty. You must not sully your hands. You must stay away from that. Therefore, one of my primary concerns in those days was to to communicate to my fellow countrymen and women that, look, politics cannot be ignored because it shapes your lives. The obvious, truism, a self-evident proposition have to be drilled into the minds of the people again and again and again. Perhaps even now, continue to do that, but it’s a little less necessary now because a lot more people recognize that whether you like politics or not, you have to be engaged because, you know, politics does shape your life and your future and your surroundings. But in those days, that that consciousness was not there, particularly among the middle classes and the and the youth and the urban people. The second is the muddled notions of the state. As I said, despite economic liberalization, a very partial economic liberalization attempt in ‘91, the default options for most Indians is that state is right. And therefore, the commonest question I faced — no. My interactions were unlike normal moments and the public discourse in India. I always had a question-answer session, a very lengthy one, not five minutes, ten minutes perfunctory one, but no. There used to be typically a two-hour session. Every day I was traveling intensively. Thirty days a month, thirty-one days a month. Morning to night. From morning 5:00, my tour would begin and end oftentimes at 10 or 11:00 in the night. That’s the kind of intensity that I had to bring to the table. And almost every interaction had detailed question and session, at least in our question and answer session. Very honest, they were not premeditated. They were not doctored. There was no screening or anything. It was very open, free-for-all kind of a thing. So the commonest question in those days I faced is public sector versus private sector. People were so, so anxious because public sector was supposed to be good. That was the given thing. Maybe because the word public sector or because of the notion that government is right ultimately and private is bad. Today, I don’t think it’s that, that serious. Though even today, you do have some remnants of that. But for a liberal reform movement, that was a very testing time. The third is the difficulty in mobilizing people the way I wanted to mobilize, because I have forsaken the dharna and the and the typical vociferous noise-making protests and rasta rokos. Because I always believed that in a constitutional democracy, the only tools available for people for change are the vote and the freedom exercised responsibly. That’s what Doctor said, and that’s what we have forgotten, unfortunately. I have never, I can say with complete conviction, never ever deviated from that no matter what provocation or what what temptation. But that means it was very difficult to mobilize people. And remember, we had no technology — yet, you know, the Internet, but just beginning, the emails, nothing more. No social platforms, social media platforms, and a very difficult environment. That’s the reason why I had to travel every single day. For about ten, twelve years, I traveled every single day. I must have addressed, at least at the very least, about 10,000 gatherings in about ten, twelve years, ranging from a few dozens to a few, few hundreds, and, literally, a few cases, a few thousands across the length and breadth of Telugu land, but also in Karnataka and and Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. But mostly in the Telugu land and both the states of Andhra Pradesh. And, of course, oftentimes travel to Delhi and other parts of India when there were some national deliberations and and conferences and so on and so forth. Therefore, to mobilize people and public opinion in a responsible way, the way it should be in a constitutional democracy without the power of technology that is now available today. So as I would say, these are the three fundamental challenges: the middle-class apathy, the and rejection of politics; the notion that government is good and private is bad still prevailing in the country; and the inefficient tools in the Indian — prevailing Indian — climate where the normal mobilization is, you know, a lot of noise and and all that, not thoughtful, thoughtful action, not informed collective assertion.