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All Politics is Local

by I.J. SINGH

 

I am not sure if it was Tip O'Neill, the former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, who first coined this phrase, but he certainly made it come alive. 

"All politics is local" is something every budding politician in democratic cultures discovers, sooner rather than later if he is any good.  Every successful politician swears by this motto and its corollary, "Think globally, act locally", and with good reason.  Self-governing communities mandate it.

I could argue that, compared to the written record of humanity, the roots of democracy are old.  Even the nomadic hunter-gatherers must have designed a system of soliciting opinions of family and clan members; this would have been necessary to arrive at a concerted plan of action.  It seems that quasi-democratic structures must have existed long before there was recorded history.

On the other hand, arguably our democratic traditions are relatively young; their antecedents are generally traced to the Greeks only around the 6^th century BC.  They practiced democracy in small autonomous city-states, each comprising no more than 10,000 citizens. 

Keep in mind that the citizens who were free consisted of men only; slaves and women were denied this basic right. "Foreigners" and a number of other categories were also denied the right. There were no representatives and each man voted directly on the issues.  But for the excluded segments of the society  -  which were the majority  -  this was a true democracy, where each vote was a referendum.

The Romans copied the Greeks, and Cicero may have been the first to enunciate the idea of the inalienable rights of man.  The Romans also introduced a Senate of representatives.  Thus, theirs was a representative democracy, and it remains our model today.   Our Bill of Rights, of course, is a logical and linear descendent of the Magna Carta that King John of Britain signed under duress in 1215 AD.

If the modern idea of democracy has any prophets or fathers in the West, they have to be the English philosopher John Locke, who published his Two Treatises in 1690, and the French thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote The Social Contract in 1762.

Quite obviously, given the large populations scattered over immense chunks of geography that most countries now have, it would be impossible for each person to vote on every issue that clamors for attention and action.  Hence, the need for representative democracy. (Given its size, Liechtenstein may be one country that can still indulge in the early Greek way of democracy, although, in actuality, it does not do so.)

Participatory self-governance requires that there be a way and a forum where people can discuss and debate issues; citizen discourse remains the key.  Ergo, the emergence of neighborhood, block and town caucuses, and political parties.

I know that India has been walking the democratic path since 1947, sometimes on wobbly feet.  But when one thinks of the exquisitely complex and rich culture of India spanning millennia, one thing that stands out is that it never really had a democratic tradition until now.  With a caste system to define its internal structure, and with invaders, conquerors and colonists galore, India never tasted freedom until sixty years ago.

But there was one notable experiment at nation building, and that was the Sikh religion and its development. 

What do people need so as not to feel oppressed and powerless?  A meaningful and positive message to construct righteous living and a life of dignity, economic hope, a code of ethics, a system of participatory self-governance so that citizens have a stake in their lives, and an internally consistent model of conflict resolution, so that a sense of fairness and justice prevails.   

So, the Sikh Gurus built institutions to address these needs. They also founded many townships to further the infrastructure of Punjab.  It is good to remember that these nation-building efforts were not done overnight; the process took ten generations of Gurus and over two hundred years. 

In fact, the concept formulated and implemented by the Sikh Gurus was the purest form of democracy known to Man, ever ... because no segments of society were excluded under any pretext whatsoever! The Greek model in reality, however, created rule by a minority elite.

Not all of these matters are under the microscope today.  The Sikh experiment, notably successful, remained limited to no more than a very small part of India.  Why?  I leave that for another day. 

What fascinates me here is the need and mechanism in any democratic society for the citizenry to have national and local caucuses, where they can dissect the matters that face them, and agree on policies and practices.  Remember: "No legislation without representation".

Exactly that was the raison d'etre for the establishment of the Akaal Takht, as also for its two annual conclaves   -   on Divali and Vaisakhi. It also explains the extensive travels that the Gurus undertook, as well as the network of preachers (parcharaks) and diocesan centers (manjees) founded by them. Also, don't forget that the villages of Punjab have historically been led by panchayats   -  small groups or committees of elected community leaders for self-governance, who remained directly accountable and available to the villagers.

Times are very different now; Sikhs are spread far and wide, not just in India, but all over the globe.  These more than twenty-five million people must find a way to knit their far-flung communities into a whole that is not monolithic, but that can come together when matters of national importance arise.

Many readers will recall that in the 1992 U.S. Presidential election, Ross Perot, otherwise a fruitcake of a candidate, hammered on one good idea.  He clearly saw the need for several town hall meetings across the country to bring Americans of all ilks together in a national conversation.

Sikhi, too, promotes this small, but common denominator of democracy and, among others, this is a requirement we expect from our gurdwaras.  They are not only places of worship, but are also social centers and forums for discourse. This, however, remains an idea that we need to rediscover and nurture.

Fortunately, now electronic media and cyberspace have also come to our rescue.  The move for these cyber-caucuses started outside India in the early 1990's, but has now mushroomed into a variety of very strong and influential modalities. 

In the Sikh world, some, like Sikh Diaspora and Gurmat Learning Zone, are more structured than others.  There are those that are almost like what I would expect of a magazine of news and opinion - such as SikhNet, Sikh Times, SikhNN, Sikh Spectrum, Sikh Philosophy, Sikhpoint and a host more that I leave unmentioned.  Keep your eye on the YouTube that is finding an effective voice in the current political campaign in the United States; it, too, will come in handy.

One that specially stands out is, in many ways, the new kid on the block.  Sikhchic.com is only a year old, but, I would say, it is the closest in many ways to an electronic Sikh version of People weekly magazine.  It highlights Sikh religion, culture, humor and art, in ways that none other does. 

Its emphasis appears to be less on breaking news, though this is not entirely neglected.  It avoids the conflicts that often mark any living society, but makes an unusual contribution with its emphasis on chardi kalaa of Sikhs all over the world.  It also promotes discourse, though the discussion is not free-wheeling and, therefore, never as rancorous as, for example, that on Gurmat Learning Zone.

To me, it seems that the variety of Sikh sites in cyberspace can knit together our widely-dispersed community, both in Punjab and outside India.

In Sikh history, the term Sarbat Khalsa literally means a conclave of the Sikh nation.  When, in history, Sikhs assembled twice a year at the Akaal Takht in Amritsar, it was the meeting of the Sarbat Khalsa, somewhat like the Loya Jirga that one sees in some Islamic nations.   This was where polity was hammered out and differences reconciled.

History tells us that the concept of the Sarbat Khalsa worked fairly well from 1726 in the post-Guru period until Maharaja Ranjit Singh disbanded the tradition in 1805.  Quite understandably, he found little use or need of a parallel center of power and authority. 

The British, who followed him when his empire collapsed, also felt threatened by this display of independence by the Sikhs, and did not allow the practice until 115 years later in 1920, following intense political pressure from Sikhs. Since 1947, the successive governments of free India have all felt similar discomfort from the semi-autonomous practice of Sarbat Khalsa and have continued to undermine it.

Just think about this:  With all these Sikh sites in cyberspace, we are in the exciting position of being able to convene a Sarbat Khalsa pretty independently of bureaucrats and governments and free of their influence.

The Guru-mandated concept of Sarbat Khalsa remains.  Its purpose is unchanged; the world now offers us newer technologies and methods to effectuate the aims. 

There is a sangat to commune with in cyberspace.  There are people there that I have never met but, thanks to electronic communication, I know them well. 

Very pointedly, Guru Granth (page 1185) lays out the modality of a democratic discourse: Hoy iktr milo merey bhaee, dubidha dur karo liv laaye; har naamae kae hovo(h) joree, gurmukh baeso safaa vichhaaye. This clearly invites us to sit together to resolve our doubts and differences. 

And then, thanks to cyberspace, we can effectively function as a nation without borders.

 

January 27, 2008

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