What is a mob?
A simple googling throws up these
definitions:
(Noun) A large crowd of
people, esp. one that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence
(Verb) Crowd around (someone)
in an unruly and excitable way in order to admire or attack them
Wikipedia defines it as: Mob
commonly refers to a crowd of people (from Latin mobile vulgus, meaning
"fickle commoners").
The online Oxford dictionary defines it as: (noun) a
large crowd of people, especially one that is disorderly and intent on causing
trouble or violence
Now they need to learn a lesson
or two from Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal. Did you say who this Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal
is? Okay, for the knowledge of those who have updated the above-mentioned four
definitions, he is the Minister of Railways in the Indian government.
Mr. Bansal strongly believes that
the huge number of the spontaneously gathered protesters during the recent two
civil protest movements was mobocracy at play.
He said in an interview to a news
channel that the massive protests in the aftermath of the Delhi gangrape were a mob-driven anarchy.
Let’s quote a weblink report here quoting Mr. Bansal:
“Our functioning of the system
gives the view that it's not democracy, but it's mobocracy. The responsibility
of the people in power is to be sensitive to the aspirations of the people. But
it's not necessary that when people converge on the streets, some minister
should go and meet them.” **
Its true Mr. Bansal that the half-baked
democracy of India
acts more like a mobocracy otherwise the current political class doesn’t
deserved even a single term in the office.
It’s the mob trait of not being
able to take decision and deciding on the lines of caste, religion and community
in recruiting the members for the state and union legislatures, a practice continued
over the years, which has created an ochlocracy (the formal avatar of mobocracy) of the ruling class in India.
The spirit of democracy envisioned by the Constitution framers has been
corrupted by the ‘rule of the few at the political level of policymaking’; who
are legitimized by the ‘exploited majority’ giving them chance to rule over.
The ‘few’ rule in the name of majority and the majority is to share the blame
with this ‘ruling minority’ for electing them on false pretext.
The need is to raise voice
against it. And since the direct target is going to be the current political
class, they will put in every effort possible to suppress the voices, even
subverting the ‘meanings and definitions’, like Mr. Bansal has done.
Certainly, the first logical
thing to happen to the Indian democracy in decades (after the JP’s movement),
was the massive and spontaneous support to the anti-corruption movement
launched by Anna Hazare. We saw the mob-trait-free mature Indian protester on
the street who withdrew when the anti-corruption movement was hijacked by the vested
interests. We saw his mature side when he decided not to support the agitation
launched by Ramdev.
The true democrat in the Indian
protester chose to take to the roads protesting the government apathy after the
Delhi gangrape.
This time, it was without any leader and the 30-day old movement is still
ongoing.
None of the traits used to define
a ‘mob’ etymologically were present in mentionable terms in these two civil
protest movements.
These spontaneous civil movements
are the rare un-mobbed, no-nonsense developments in the history of the
Democratic Republic of India. And given the quick succession and the sustained
momentum of two hugely popular and committed civil protest movements in just
two years are the warning bells for the insensitive political breed of the
time.
What should be more worrying for
the political class is the transition, from a ‘person and issue-driven’
movement as was the case with anti-corruption movement to an
‘issue-driven-leaderless’ movement as is the case with the Delhi gangrape protests.
An insensitive and inept
political class, unable to read in-between the lines and unable to understand
the nuances of this maturing character of the Indian population, though in
pockets at the moment but potent enough to spread throughout in the age of
demographically young India connected through the new-age tools of
communication, looks to retaliated when the constructive need is to ‘collaborate’.
Now, if Mr. Manmohan Singh and
his many colleagues choose to label this maturing Indian population as mobs, it
is nothing more but a poor attempt to cover-up their utter failure in running
the government.
** Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal
says India
is a mobocracy, feels netas don't need to speak to protesters