Last week leading English newspaper carried on its front page news regarding Kejriwal’s apology to Gadkari and Sibal’s son under the title “Kejriwal’s sorry count: Three down, quite a few to go”. The way the news item was presented and embellished suggests that the paper is preparing for a long haul of public ridicule under title “Trials and tribulations of Kejriwal”. No one expects anything different from godi media. The only response could be the old Russian saying “Eagles may at times fly lower than hens, but hens can never rise to the height of eagles.”
If the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was to judge, he will treat Kejriwal as the virtuous person who has taken the right action. As per Aristotle, such virtuous persons know how to find the golden mean which he calls the virtue. The two extremes as per Aristotle are the vice that is “deficiency” or “excess” or in current context “indifference” or “suicidal”. Not to call Bikram Singh Majithia as drug lord despite knowing the ground reality would amount to deficiency or indifference and lose the case, get convicted, jailed and consigned to inaction for a considerable period would have been excess or suicidal. As per Aristotle virtue is a way of living with practical wisdom. Such virtuous person is an example of human flourishing or Eudemonia Greek word meaning a life of striving, pushing oneself hard and trying to find success.
Critiques may write off this as a philosophical whitewash because all of us want well-functioning civil society. And Kejriwals must fight and get it for us. But we will not have skin in the game. Bhagat Singhs are needed but better be born in neighbours’ house.
It is alright for Bikram Singh Majithia to tout Kejriwal’s apology letter as false positive. But we all must realise that this apology letter of Kejriwal is not a character certificate. It is a legal ploy to wriggle out of difficult circumstance to fight the issue at the more opportune time in future. That is the Aristotelian virtue, the golden mean.
However, the matter does not rest there. For rest of us, the apology letter makes a statement. This time, Kejriwal is not taking on the high and mighty. Instead, he is challenging every tone-deaf member of civil society. He is questioning the entire middle class deep drown into shameless self-aggrandisement.
Kejriwal is asking us one question. Global citizens that we all are, if we desire and demand democratic society and the rule of law then are we going to expect him to carry the burden of proof all alone? Don’t we see that the overcrowded, ill-resourced legal machinery being used in a selective and sinister way by rich and mighty to gag the voice of conscience? How can we look the other way, when the Chief Justice of Supreme Court with tears in his eyes demands filling overdue vacancies of judges before an insolent Prime Minister. And under such circumstance isn’t the law based morality (as against a virtue-based morality) provides a convenient fig leaf for our indifference and inaction
However, I am aware today it will be naïve to expect from Indian middle-class anything other than me, my family and my dog as the priority. All of us, the rich the aspirers, seekers and strivers are absorbed in expanding upgrading and diversifying our consumption basket. More dangerous is the fact that we have willingly pulled the wool over our eyes. We believe this as the progress of society. India is shining. The excluded two third are forgotten, either moved far away from our sixteen lane expressways or tucked in urban squalors below the crisscrossing flyovers. This is the neoliberal culture of materialistic individualism and a self-interested outlook. As articulated by late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, one of the pioneers of Neoliberalism in an interview in Women’s Own in 1987
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“They are casting their problems at society. There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men, and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.”
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No wonder, hordes of Indians are leaving or aspiring to leave the country. Those who can afford to buy nationality, others hang on to H1B visas, and more desperate ones go under the pretext of postgraduate studies often investing family silver. So it is time for them to flush down the drain tryst with destiny and rush to the international airport with bags bulging with papads and pickles. But before I say goodbye to them, I will share with them Pablo Neruda’s famous quote “you can trample the flowers, but you cannot stop the spring from coming”
