The Predatory State

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The predatory State

Author: Rajeev Srinivasan

Publication: Rediff on Net

Date: August 16, 2002

URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/aug/16rajeev.htm

Why is the life of the common man in India so often nasty, brutish and short? Itis because the State is failing, or more accurately because the State is predatory.In general, I support a strong State, a necessity for nation-building. However,the Indian State is not dependable, which is why I am nervous about thePrevention of Terrorism Act, POTA: I fear that it will in fact be used not for thecommon man, but against him.

The Indian State is not able to, or willing to, or even interested in, protectingthe interests of its citizens. The State is a dangerous entity whose primaryinterest is self-preservation and self-aggrandisement. This is because the State-- such as it is today -- is a vestige of imperial structures, intended to exploit thecitizenry.

The rapacious State is not a universal phenomenon. There is a good reason whyin the US there was little retaliation after 9/11 against Muslims by individuals:there is strong enforcement of the law, plus the populace is confident that thegovernment will wreak vengeance. But the Indian State is not capable of wreaking vengeance on wrong-doers. It has shown its inability to containviolence perpetrated by anybody.

This has been shown time and again. The Rajiv Gandhi government failed to protect the Sikh citizens of Delhi when Congress goons went on a rampageagainst them. A number of governments in Srinagar and Delhi have failed to protect the Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist citizens of Jammu and Kashmir who have been murdered, raped and ethnically cleansed. The Modi government inGujarat failed to protect Muslim citizens all over Gujarat, and Hindu citizens inGodhra.

The Indian government failed to protect Hindu Reang tribals in Tripura from being ethnically cleansed by Christian fundamentalists. The Indian governmentfailed to prevent its soldiers being tortured to death by Pakistan andBangladesh. Most egregiously, the combined power of several states has failedto capture notorious poacher Veerappan.

Why? It is because the State does nothing against criminals and barbarians.This is because the State itself may be criminal and barbarian.

This is the reason many people, and Hindus in particular, have lost faith in theState. They see Hindus being the victims of State indifference everywhere.Alien terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir need fear no reprisal when they ejecthundreds of thousands of Hindu Pandits to a miserable fate in refugee camps inDelhi. Who cries for these refugees? See the documentary And the WorldRemained Silent by Ashok Pandit.

What did the State do when 35 Sikhs were massacred by terrorists in Jammuand Kashmir? What about when Hindu pilgrims going to Amarnath were killed by terrorists? What about when two Hindu priests were beheaded in Jammu andKashmir? What about when a Hindu priest was shot dead in his temple in the Northeast? How about when 28 Hindus were massacred in a suburb of Jammu?

The Indian State did nothing. The State wrung its hands and shrugged itsshoulders. Contrast this with the situation in the US. There were letter bombs;they found the Unabomber. The Oklahoma building was bombed; theyexecuted Timothy McVeigh. The recent pipe bomber in Nevada has beencaught. There is a feeling that the US State can and will punish wrongdoers.There is no escaping from the long arm of the law: even if you hide overseas,the US will extradite you and try you, ask the guests of the nation inGuantanamo Bay. Some may quibble that the US sometimes punishesinnocents, which it does; but an implacable image is created --and that is adeterrent against crime.

But this is not true of the Indian State. The State, as it appears to most people,is a monstrous thing that is to be feared if you are a normal person; only politicians and criminals can get anything done by the State for them. You haveno faith in the State.

Then why is everyone surprised when vigilantes take matters into their ownhands?

The Indian State is such that it is because it is a continuation of the predatoryimperial State. Nobody knows how the ancient Hindu/Buddhist State was before the coming of the Muslims so I won't talk about that. But it is clear thatIndia has been governed by predatory States ever since. We have had asuccession of the following:

* A predatory Muslim State whose objective was conversion and looting

* A predatory Christian State whose objective was grand theft and conversion

* A predatory Marxist/Nehruvian Stalinist State whose objective is grandlarceny and self-

preservation

India has had the unique and dubious distinction of having been governed byall three of the Semitic faiths. It is a wonder that India has survived.

Note that nowhere in the job descriptions of these Semitic tyrannies is there anymention of the rights of the people. Of course, much sloganeering happens inthe name of the 'rights of the people', but that is all for show.

The Muslim State was clear in its objective of capturing the wealth that hadaccumulated in India. As I have said before, Indians collectively chose butter over guns a thousand years ago; and we then did not have the guns to protectour butter. This is the answer to those who wrote to me regarding my columnSport as metaphor asking why the money spent on a modern navy would not be better spent on alleviating poverty. The answer, folks, is that they wouldn't be poor in the first place if we had decent defense.

Several readers have questioned my characterisation of the colonial period as a'Christian state.' I do so in analogy with the widespread use of 'Hindu/Buddhist' period, 'Muslim' period, etc. Why not then speak of the 'Christian' state? If assorted Turk, Afghan, Arab, Central Asian invaders are lumped in under 'Muslim,' why not assorted British, French, Portuguese, Dutch barbarians under 'Christian'? Besides, British imperialists were highly influenced by Christianevangelistic ideas. See the following quote from Subhash Chakravarthy, TheRaj Syndrome: A Study in Imperial Perceptions Penguin India 1991, pp. 62:

'Examining the Christian forces at work in the administration of India and themutual relations of the British Government and the Christian missions between1600 and 1920, Arthur Mayhew, a director of public instruction in Indiadeclared: 'Often unconsciously, and sometimes with protestations to thecontrary, those responsible during a century and a half for India's welfare had been concerned not only, as Kipling suggested, with the Law of the Prophet, but also the spirit of the Gospels' [all references here are to Arthur Mayhew,Christianity and the Government of India, An Examination of the Christianforces at work in the administration of India and of the Mutual Relations between the British Government and Christian Missions 1600-1920, London,undated].'

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