Social Murder And The Missing State

Context: The defence that the government is not responsible for the present crisis has consequences for India’s democracy.

Negative consequences for India Democracy: Due to vindication of government’s actions by its supporters -

• A Social Murder: Friedrich Engels argued that it is the same as murder by an individual; the only di?erence is that this murder is “disguised”, for “no man sees the murderer”, and the death appears to be a “natural one”.
  • In other words, our inability to hold the state accountable for deaths is social murder.
  • For e.g. state’s apathy towards the tragic plight of millions of inter-State migrant labour walking thousands of kilometres resulted in mass sufferings and deaths.
  • Citizens were asked to own up their mistakes, despite the unassailable actions of the state (Election Commission conducting election and continuation of Kumbh Mela).
• Leading to a bigger disaster: As epidemiologists assert, obfuscating the real gravity of a pandemic is the dangerous path to a bigger disaster.
  • For e.g., If the Chinese state had not hidden the pandemic in its initial stages, the world probably would not have been at this juncture.
  • But the tragedy in India is sought to be portrayed as cultural exceptionalism that cannot be televised (showing of cremation being against Hindu culture).
• Transformed Patrimonialism: In which the ruler exercises a traditional form of authority that rests on the “sanctity of immemorial traditions”, in contrast to a rule based on a rational­legal bureaucracy or impersonal rules. – as put forth by Max Weber.
  • Ideally, this patrimonial government (as a ‘mai-baap sarkar’) turns out to be the dispenser of benevolence towards subjects; however, it was unable to perform such functions – for e.g. failed to provide oxygen.
  • This has resulted in Social Darwinism, in which only the most powerful have some chance of survival.
  • One of the fundamental problems in patrimonialism is ensuring accountability, which becomes stark when the patrimonial state goes missing. For e.g. no press conference has been held by the PM.

Way Forward:

• Become citizens and not subjects:
  • India, under the pandemic, is seeing a different kind of prejudice, pre­ conceived opinions and mad blindness in sanctioning social murder.
  • Unless people become citizens and not subjects under patrimonial rule, the calamitous clouds of the pandemic portend a bleak future for Indian democracy as well.