By: Mohsin

Mohsin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:38:24 +0000

I may not be a regular visitor of the blog, but a chance visit, to put it mildly, gave me a shock. A blog which seems to based on human rights and democracy (that too by a law student) laments the tragedy of being “ruled by people”. An unsolicited and unfounded phrase. Perhaps, this tacit hypocrisy can be seen as a creeping middle-class discomfiture of popular dissent and will. I would suggest the author to look at the comments of Mr. Thackeray and critical reaction in more respectable blogs like lawandotherthings (by Venkatesan). Of course, I am not in complete agreement with Mr. Thackeray. But I certainly do not think that his politics indicates that the malady of this democracy of ours is the rule of the people, but rather certain strains of unrecognized modern political phenomenon which have nothing to do with traditional religion or common sense of people (I would suggest a close reading of post-colonial literature, especially Ashis Nandy to the author).
Another observation. In the post titles Mea Culpa, apart from a general strain of rhetoric, there has been an inaccrurate analysis of the Supreme Court’s decisions (may be because of a “lazy sunday”). To suggest a correction, Affirmative Action in the Constitution is not merely to correct “historical wrongs”, but reflects a larger project of representation and participation for sections satisfying the requirements of Articles 15 (4) and 16 (4). Though I agree with the author that an apology (and more importantly workable solutions- and not merely symbolic and parochial steps- see sainath’s oped in hindu a couple of days back) is required.

Comments on: Hate Speech and Democracy

By: Mohsin