Tide does not obey royal command

Amit Bhadurii

He was revered as the ruler of everything he had surveyed. The

legendary King Canute commanded the incoming tide to roll back, not
to wet his royal feet and robe. To the embarrassment of his courtiers,
the sea did not obey, despite the divine power of the king. The legend
survives because it speaks truth to the arrogance of power nurtured by
flattery.

Modern democracies do not bestow divine power to its democratically

elected leader. But it gives him (or her) a chance to become a despot,
not a dictator. He rules democratically by laws passed in the
parliament. Despotic tendencies in democracies are a new breed
conveniently coming up especially these days under the cover of the
pandemic in several countries around the world. It may be ghost
parliament of sorts where the opposition is absent, it maybe the
parliament suspended in the name of say health emergency, or it may
simply be the habit formed by the heady after-effect of a brute majority
enjoyed in the parliament until the time of reckoning comes again, if it
comes at all.

It is now history that the Indian parliament recently enacted three farm
bills which has set off tides of protests by farmers led mostly by farmers
from Punjab, Haryana and western U.P., and more joining in
increasingly from many other parts of India. They want the three farm
laws to be repealed, and want in its place a written reasonable
minimum support price law, not an unwritten verbal assurance for all
essential agricultural commodities. The government is unwilling.
The incoming tidal wave of protests was about to reach the throne of
the democratic leader and wet his feet and robes, but was stopped by
force. Not the farmers, but the government in power ordered its police
to dig trenches on national highways, used barricades and water
cannons. And yet, the waves of protest did not die down; it only began
to rise and consolidated peacefully at selected points of entry at the
border of the capital. The resistance is getting more and more massive,
and spreading to distant parts of India.

The leader says he is misunderstood. The laws are meant to bring in

prosperity and double the income of the farmers in a couple of years
only if they follow his lead. His courtiers and advisors too believe in the
magic of the market place. Minimum support price is a hindrance to
prosperity, only free market can deliver. These three laws are designed
to create a free market. This would be a free market in which Mr.
Ambani’s team keen on expanding its retail outlets of agricultural
products , or Mr. Adani’s men desperate to fill up the already
constructed silos with grains will bargain over the price with farmers
most of whom own less than a couple of acres of land. Moreover, in
case of disagreement, not the civil court but the central government
which passed the law in the first place will give the verdict. And, the
states where the land is geographically located, will have no say either.
It will be the Central government which passes the law, executes it and
settles dispute, absolute concentration rather than separation of power
in a federal democratic set up envisaged in the Indian constitution. The
farmers say they will have none of such laws, but the leader in a solemn
voice says over and over again on the media he is being misunderstood.
His courtiers and paid pundits repeat passionately through the big
media that, indeed leader is being misunderstood. The reason might be
Pakistanis, Khalistanis, Maoists, and urban Naxalites along with
opposition political parties, perhaps all of them infiltrated by those
various dangerously separatist elements. They are misleading the
innocent farmers.

This is not the first time. The Muslims misunderstood the CAA. The
Kashmiries did not see the beauty of repealing Article 370.Trades
pretended not to understand GST. The poor somehow eking an
existence did not understand demonetization, nor did the migrant
worker understand and appreciate the sudden lockdown which was
more effective in destroying them than the Covid virus. Nevertheless
the leader leads resolutely to make the country great in every way.

He is understood only by the real patriots (‘deshbhakts’), and opposed

by the traitors to the country (‘deshadrohis’). He is criticized by those
(the tukre-tukre gang) who want to shred to pieces our ancient glorious
Hindu Rashtra in the making. They do not really belong to this country
because they are alien to its culture, and its grand, scientific tradition
which transformed the face of Lord Ganesh to that of an elephant
through plastic surgery, where the ancient wise men(Rishis) had found
out long ago how by making noise with the utensils and lighting candles
you could win the war against epidemics in a few days. We cannot say
for sure whether all his courtiers, his ministers, his pundits and the
mainstream media agree. They certainly do not show any sign of
disagreeing. Flattery not understanding, loyalty not questioning,
subservience not dissent is the name of only game that is to be played
in this politics.

Viking king Canute ruled most of Scandinavia and conquered by force

Britain. Most historians claim he was actually a wise ruler, too wise
perhaps to believe in the unlimited divine power of the king. He
understood that forces far stronger that any royal order guided the
course of incoming tide. And indeed, on that day his throne was placed
next to the sea only to demonstrate this wisdom. He understood
motivated flattery of his courtiers tended to hide simple wisdom. This
sea side episode was a simple, yet powerful demonstration of his ‘man
ki baat’ to his courtiers and to his subjects. That is why it has stayed in
history after a thousand years, and has become a legend. To
understand the simple truth that the tide is stronger than royal order
was the wisdom of his time. The wisdom of our time is that the might
wave of a massively popular tide is more powerful than any act of the
parliament. Is there wisdom in our time and country to accept it
gracefully?
i
Amit Bhaduri is an economist. In January this year, Bhaduri gave up his status as professor emeritus
at JNU in protest against the throttling of dissent on the campus.