 Hello and welcome to NewsClick as the country celebrates the 73rd year of India becoming a republic. We have it as a special guest Mr. Harsh Mandir who needs very little introduction. He's an activist, he's a human rights activist, he started the Karwai Mohabbath and he runs the Center for Equity Studies in Delhi. Let's go over to our guest. Welcome to our show Mr. Mandir. Mr. Mandir, can we begin with the Republic Day in a sense the parade and the entire ceremony which we're going to have on the 26th. I'll see see from Egypt is our country's chosen guest. What do you think it says about the Indian Republic, our guest? You know I think that the Indian Republic is passing through its most difficult period in the last 75 years and I even include the emergency which was another time when the constitution was held in your veins. This is a time where our freedoms are being truncated day after day after day the spaces for dissent and there are the problems as well. But in the context of inviting a dictator who's sort of infamous for having jailed artists, writers, people, political dissenters for years with no trial. It's a sad reflection. It's almost ironical because it almost is where we are reaching in this Republic now where we are seeing some of our best hearts and minds being locked up for years without even a trial starting. So the selection is unfortunate but also strangely sort of inconformity with where our country is going, where our Republic is going. What do you see as the threats to the Republic? You see there's this conversation all the time about threats from outside, threats from within and you know the very militaristic way in which we organize this particular day. What are the threats? See I think the constitution really came out of a freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi and the constitution led by Dr. M. Vedkar. Central to it was the idea that we would be a kind, humane, equal, just country in which it would not matter which god you worship or few worship no god. It would not matter what your caste, your religion, your gender, your wealth. You would be an equal citizen of this country in every way. That was the central promise of our constitution and we're passing through a time now when it's terrifying to be a minority, particularly a Muslim minority. We're seeing each through the last eight years, we're seeing you know the political marginalization of 200 million people. You have a ruling party which is proud of the fact that it does not have a single Muslim MP in the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha or an Emily in any assembly across the country. So there's a political marginalization, there's a social climate of hatred through runaway hate speech and lynching and hate attacks. But after 2019 I'm also seeing you know a straightforward, the state is clearly at war with its Muslim citizens. You know the bulldozer is in a sense a symbol of this. Bulldozer means that I don't care about the constitution. I don't care about the rule of law. We will choose and we'll break down your homes and we've only seen it in Israel actually. The use of the bulldozer and it seems almost that. So the first and the biggest threat is this idea of equal citizenship for people of every faith and identity and caste that is in you know it is tearing apart and that was really the foundation of the idea of India through the freedom struggle in the constitution but I must underline through a much older civilizational history as well. So that is one threat but that's not the only threat. Surrounding it is also the threat to freedom of thought and freedom of conscience into all our freedoms. In fact Roosevelt spoke about four freedoms, the freedom of conscience, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want and the freedom from fear and just by saying it you realize how much each of these fears or each of these freedoms are under such intense threat today. There's fear everywhere. If you see it in universities, in the media, you see it in of course in civil society any criticism of the government of its policies of the whole ideological frame of this government is now seen as a dangerous act. It has sort of hard consequences on even your survival and for some of us the threat of being imprisoned and charged with the greatest of crimes, the use of the enforcement directorate, the use of the UAPL law and I think that this republic day if I want to remember one person it would be Father Stan Swami who should be in a role model for all of us and in the circumstances this man had spent decades of his life standing with India's poorest people in Jharkhand and he is imprisoned not even given a sipper he has Parkinson's and he dies without any trial. So I think that the attack on India's minorities and its you know framework of secularism, the attack on India's and on all our freedoms and a third which I'd still like to add I mean it's not it's that's why I find it so great is also an attack which is more covert but it's very much there it's an attack on India's working poor especially on India's informal labour. What we did during the pandemic to you know you have you order a country-wide lockdown with no relief and support in a country where nine out of ten people are informal workers and a sudden lockdown and a sudden lockdown with no relief package and and the devastation that it it it brought as well. So I see you know the attack of the state on on India's Muslim minorities to some extent to Christian minorities the attack on on our freedoms and the attack on the working poor that is why this is this is a republic day very somber republic day for me. You know but it's also an attack which is in a sense becoming wider we have you know top politicians ruling the country talking about the basic structure of the constitution almost as if it is just a technicality is it just a technicality? No in fact in fact it is I think that that what is most severely an attack and I probably should have said it that when I talked about these three wars it is ultimately a war on our constitution itself it is a war on on on what kind of you know collective living in this country we had promised ourselves we the people of India in the writing of our constitution it is that that is most under threat today and I see you know to start with we saw the prime minister paying some sort of formal obeisance to the constitution etc but now it is you know it's it's being chipped away and you know you want none of the checks and balances and independent judiciary and independent media universities as places where students have the right to right to think and question and dissent and and so on and civil society which is you know which is where we you know a vibrant self-confident country should welcome different voices different thoughts different imaginations all of that you know we Tagore wrote where the mind is without fear and the head is held high where knowledge is free where the world has not been broken up by narrow domestic walls again just think of these four things that he he wrote and think of our country today is the mind without fear is the head held high is knowledge free you know you're in the media you tell me and and where the world is so badly broken up by narrow domestic walls you know this reminds me again of the question of citizenship which you just touched upon so who in we are also discussing who is a citizen is it somebody who is born here is it somebody who can come from anywhere and become a citizen why is this question important today you know it is it is you know in the circumstances I was also born after independence you were much younger than me but but you know we it's a time to remember the circumstances in we got in which we got our freedom a million people had killed each other were killing each other in the partition rights Hindu Muslim Sikh the country had got torn apart rivers of blood were flowing and Pakistan had been constituted on the basis of religion but we chose and in fact this is one of my favorite pictures because the three men who who at that time stood up and said no this is this will not be a nation just for its Hindu majority it'll be a country of equal citizenship for all and that idea is so precious and that is what is is just flying out and I will spend some almost a year in Germany trying to look at Nazi Germany and the similarities are are terrifying about what happened in the run up to the holocaust and I didn't writing later says citizenship is ultimately the right to have rights it's a very beautiful formation it is the right to have rights we we're fast moving into an India in which Muslims do not have the right to have rights if I choose to bulldoze your house I'll just do it you know if I if I choose to charge you I mean a journalist or Muslim identity is coming to report on the gang rape of a young Dalit girl and you'll put him in prison for for years so so so we had we're fast very fast moving into a situation in which we are consenting to a completely transformed Indian Republic where the constitution is set aside and where some people because of their religious identity don't have the right to have rights I want to ask you what do you think people view of this Republic how do people you think consider the Indian Republic today how far have we met our goals how far we have not you know again I talked a little bit about Nazi Germany you know I learned that what I learned in that year was the horror of Nazi Germany was not Hitler primarily it was ordinary people it was the huge support of ordinary people to the genocidal project against Jews against disabled people against homosexual men and so on and against the Roman Sinti in India today what is terrifying to me is the growing support for the project of hate and and and I think that is what should trouble us most how do we want our children what kind of do you want your child you belong to the most privileged upper caste Hindu rich family do you think your child is going to be untouched by this climate of hate I mean do you want your child to be hateful or do you want your child to be kind that's a choice that we have to make and we are more and more of us are making the first choice to succumb to the pressure to be seen a time when hatred and bigotry is not just seen as as as normal it's seen as legitimate but it's also seen as heroic you know you're the hero of the Hindu nation when you can spout a kind of hatred that we see from a member of parliament Pragya Thakur for instance that is she's proving how much she loves this nation and she loves her religion that's not my idea of you know Gandhiji had taught us many things that one of the things was that no it cannot be true religion when it is founded on the hatred of any other he was a devout Hindu and therefore he respected every other faith monazad was deeply devout muslim and therefore he respected every other faith so we're moving into you know into a situation where ordinary people are in growing numbers in all our family whatsapp groups which of us all our school friend college friend whatsapp groups when you see and I'm I have my highest whatsapp groups from which I've sort of you know exited when you see the kind of bigotry that is that is that is openly paraded in rich and rich middle-class Indians that is the horror of what is unfolding today you know there's also another aspect of the last 75 years which is we spend so little as a country on education on health I have to mention education you mentioned so you know what does that say about yeah that's actually a much older older feeling and we Amartya Sen put it very well you know he said that that if you compare India and China in some ways they are equally unequal countries but he said that the penalty and it's a very fine formulation he said the penalty of inequality is hugely more in India than it is in China I belong to the bottom 10% in China I will still my child will still have access to a decent government school and will still have a hospital where she can be sent when she's sick at the bottom 10% the bottom 50 60 70% we don't have that in India we have one of the most privatized healthcare systems in the world and during the lockdown and you know it just hit me did you you know do you know what percentage of doctors in India trained doctors in India work for private private sector 80% 80% and that is after a large number of already left for US and those who leave left behind 80% work for for private corporate hospitals what is the public system if I am you know in India today to be poor is a crime but to be poor with a serious ailment is a crime that deserves capital punishment you know I I attended my father and my mother through the last years and and I often used to think that the amount because of the insurance and because of you know what they could afford that's why they lived till late 80s in my father till the 90s if if they were an average Indian there was no way they would have lived we cannot tolerate in India and I'm not talking about education which is even you know you know this idea of equal chances with foreign universities so we are just worried about this top layer and and it's we are getting Arunthi Roy somewhere said that there's been only one successful secession movement in India seceding and that's the seceding of the middle class and rich Indian from the rest of India we've created our own stratosphere so in a sense you're saying that India has created structures which are contrary to the founding idea absolutely so so you know this top structure so they don't care what's happening in government schools because we have the private schools and we go abroad we don't care if there's sort of law and order problems we have our own security they don't care if there's pollution we've created our own they don't care if there's no clean water we've created out so we've built a stratosphere of of the wealthy who live lifestyles the access to the best hospital schools education best I'd say in inverted commas and and and the rest are getting further and further left behind so when we see us falling more and more on the global hunger index it should create intense shame and introspection about where we are as a republic but the trouble with you and I the class to which we belong is is not the inequality of India but our comfort with inequality we don't care we don't care and I think that that we are going to be held I mean sometime in history we will be seen as the most uncaring and cruel people of privilege that perhaps are there anywhere in the world um that's a very strong indictment you know uh is this what allows the state to sort of weaponize welfare instead of looking at it as a necessity we look at it often the government looks at it as something you know for example the food train scheme not only is it debated in the most crass terms but it is also seen as the state having done its job yeah you know and and and see what has what has changed they we've failed over especially over the last 30 years with the whole neoliberal project but with all the failings of of the last government the first steps were taken of recognizing rights social rights the right to education the right to food and nutrition the right to work through NREJ these and the right to information these were very very crucial and hard hard fought for all of these now what we have seen is welfare as largest right you know apki daya the the raja ke maharaja ke daya se apko vaccination milkya wow maharaja ke vaccination se apko paanch ke lo anaj milkya jawab bhu ke madhain matta you should be grateful to him for the rest of your life and certainly you should vote for him that's not a democracy that's not you know this is the the fundamental duty of a government is to ensure clean water food nutrition healthcare sanitation for all citizens and it should be politically punished if it doesn't do it right and not that it hands it out like you know like you know like the rajas of old old times you know to their subjects okay they've given that is what welfare has been reduced so we we were not a welfare state in 2014 we were very far from a welfare state we were taking some initial steps in that direction but today we are not I mean the idea of of welfare is right as you're right you're right to have rights is not there for any of us there's this song in a film from your generation actually or actually before your generation maybe was that song more valid than or now it's it's much more valid now because when that song was written it was yes it was the generation that just preceded me it was still a time of idealism it was a time when I mean you would say that was the kind of idealism I mean now you that idealism we've been we've got corroded a sense of hope for for a dream of in India where Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs and Christians would live together as sisters and brothers a dream of a country where the gap between the rich and poor would be smaller and smaller the dream of a country where you would have the freedom to to walk with your head high and speak what your heart and conscience tells you or the dream of a country where where the state would take responsibility to ensure a basic life of dignity all of that is lost what we have instead is is this idea I mean those of us in that stratosphere that I just spoke about we are having lifestyles that match or are far better than perhaps people anywhere in the world because we also have domestic help and so on so forth so so that's in India we we've become content with and it's not a situation republic day is a time when we need to think and you know I think India's republic is at its darkest I want kindness I want justice I want freedom thank you very much for joining us thank you thank you so much