I woke up to the remarkable news that 272 ’eminent personalities’ had written an open letter (given at the end of this post), not to the government that governs (or at least is supposed to), nor to the Election Commission whose reputation they claim to defend, but to the Leader of the Opposition. To Rahul Gandhi. I cannot recall another democracy where retired judges, generals, bureaucrats, and ambassadors direct their moral thunder at the opposition rather than at the state (even in countries where the opposition leader calls for a literal coup… and is rewarded with a Nobel for that!).
When our public conscience has stirred in the long distant, now-dead past, it has always been toward power: writers returning awards after Kalburgi and Dabholkar, scientists speaking up after Dadri, veterans objecting to the politicisation of the armed forces, bureaucrats writing after Gauri Lankesh. The idea that pointing out institutional collapse somehow damages the institution is an acrobatic inversion of logic. If the emperor is naked, the person pointing this out is not the problem. The problem is the emperor’s lack of clothes. Yet here we are, reprimanding the messenger while insisting the emperor’s dignity remains intact, even as his naughty bits are hanging out.
And this faux indignation arrives at a time when far graver failures demand scrutiny. India has aligned itself with Israel even as Gaza bleeds. Chinese troops walked into Ladakh and left us swallowing euphemisms. The Trump administration has imposed unreasonable tariffs. Our relationships with our neighbours are at an all-time low. 50% of our population subsists on free food provided by the government. Our urban population is asphyxiating in pollution. Our cities sink in rains. Convicted rapists are out on parole while undertrials languish without bail. Farmers die by suicide for a few thousand rupees. The unemployed are rotting their brains on reels. Indians abroad are unwelcome and being harassed. Every single indicator is under pressure or showing regression, from HDI or passport ranking, We have had terror in Pulwama and Pahalgam, blasts in Delhi, and a steady hollowing of democratic institutions.
Against this backdrop, the true emergency declared by our eminences is that Rahul Gandhi criticised the Election Commission. One must admire the timing. I genuinely wonder how many of these same worthies wrote to Narendra Modi in 2002 when Gujarat burned, or at any point in the last decade as institutions eroded, nay were eaten and made hollow from the inside, publicly and in broad daylight.
Writing to the LOP is not an act of conscience. It is a performance. In fact, it is vaudeville. And if this is what passes for public courage now, then perhaps our real crisis is not institutional decay but the shrinking of our collective spine.
