The Hindu : Intellectual betrayals

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Friday, Jan 31, 2003

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Intellectual betrayals

By Pratap Bhanu Mehta

When intellectuals abdicate their independence democracy is at far greater risk than when the CII puts profits before propriety.

EVEN IN a political culture that is used to its most privileged classes, professionals, Government officials, captains of industry acting servile in the presence of power, the self-abasement of so many intellectuals in the service of power still comes as something of a shock. Of course, it is, at one level, absurd to suppose that the sole task of intellectuals is opposing power or restricting authority, wherever these may touch them. Denying the moderate claims of duly constituted authorities and politicians can itself be a symptom of fanaticism and is a recipe for disaster. But the kind of servility on display when the nation's most prominent philosophers, scientists, historians, each accomplished in his\her own right, felicitated Murli Manohar Joshi recently on his birthday, suggests an intellectual abdication of the highest order. When the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) recently tried to stifle debate by unceremoniously ejecting Jairus Banaji for asking a pertinent question of Narendra Modi, the outcry was clear and justified. But the manner in which so many men and women of letters, the heads of the most prestigious scientific, literary, philosophical and historical bodies paid tributes to the honourable Minister, tributes that on the face of it are so inauthentic that anyone ought to be embarrassed receiving them, suggests that the servility of the CII pales in comparison to what so many intellectuals are up to these days. And it does not augur well for democracy.

Intellectuals in the service of power are a disconcertingly widespread phenomenon. It happens to intellectuals of the right as well as of the left. This temptation has many sources. At its most venal, intellectuals, perhaps even more so than others, can be rank opportunists. And certainly a system where the state controls so many of the resources and incentives that govern the professional lives of intellectuals, intellectual life is bound to be easily corroded by state power. Many intellectuals are simply deluded by the realities of power. Their own yearnings for an ideal of commitment, makes them blind to the messy realities of power around them. They wishfully project their own fantasies and yearnings on the world and become oblivious to its complexities. Such was arguably the case with the two unrivalled geniuses of the 20th century, Heidegeer and Sartre, whose blindness to the actual world led them to condone evil on a vast scale.

Intellectuals often like to think of themselves as being consequential. But ideas work in strange and unpredictable ways, leaving intellectuals grasping for a quick acknowledgement of their own importance. And what better acknowledgment than that of the most consequential of people around you: those in power. Intellectual life is in some ways so other-directed. When an engineer builds a bridge the test of his success is that the bridge does not collapse when used. What is the test of success for intellectuals? Unless they are extraordinarily self-possessed, their sense of success and failure is founded upon that fleeting gratification: opinion. Most intellectuals are not going to access public opinion at large and they are wise not to do so. The opinion that counts for them is the opinion of peers — competent professionals well placed to judge their work. But in a professional environment such as in India, where, to put it mildly, professional standards are evanescent and unmeaning, what opinion should count? Some intellectuals may get vindication from a far more professionalised community of their peers in the West, but many, even good ones, are unsure of their own worth. They become susceptible to flattery and in turn actively seek vindication from those in power.

This partly is the source of another form of corruption that intellectuals are often prone to: they often come in packs. Their sense of identity comes from ingratiating themselves with a particular group and the imperatives of holding onto at least that group override intellectual clairvoyance. Even intellectuals who are opposing power and authority can succumb to this temptation. And honesty demands that we admit that much of what passes as intellectual life on the left, with some possible exceptions, has this character. Even when it opposes what the state does on matters of history and economics it does not give the impression of being thoughtful. Rather, its incantations seem like so many efforts to maintain a kind of group identity, a kind of dogmatic closure that is as corroding as the powers they oppose. Mere opposition to state power is not by itself a sign of independence either. It can often mean you are beholden to another god. You know intellectual thinking is at an end when you can predict someone's answer to a question, before the question has been asked.

So it should not come as any surprise that intellectuals, rather than being the source of resistance to all kinds of falsehoods are often the first to succumb to them. Very few intellectuals can stand being lonely within their professional circles — rare is a Raymond Aaron fighting the high tide of left dogmatism, or a B.R. Shenoy, pointing out against the trends of his time, the fallacy of planning, or Rajni Kothari pointing out the perils of the state before it became fashionable to do, or an Andre Beteille posing a high-minded liberalism against the populist trends of our time. Since intellectuals are so other-directed, so dependent on others for vindication, they are prone to all kinds of corruption: the corruption that comes from assiduously courting opinion in your favour, the corruption that comes from wanting to be consequential, the corruption that comes from seeking a group to ally yourself with, the corruption that comes simply from the wish not to court public controversy, the corruption that comes from being populist, and the corruption that comes from power, not to mention the possible Padma Bhushan.

Why should any of this matter? The cause of democracy and truth is almost never advanced by conformity in thinking: be it conformity to state power or a party or simply an overbearing professional consensus. Intellectuals of both the left and the right forget this simple and fundamental truth. India has arguably had intellectuals who devoted themselves to all manner of good causes: justice, social uplift, nation. But the zeal with which intellectuals are embracing power in its various guises suggests that few of us are willing to pay the price of holding our independence more valuable than our respective causes. In a democratic society intellectuals do not and should not have any special authority.

What they have is a role that incites thinking. It is hard to imagine that we can fulfil this role if we appear not to be thinking our own thoughts, but those of honourable ministers, or partisan groups. The quiescence of intellectuals in the face of power is a deep malady: it suggests a lack of self-possession, a resistance to cultivating your own individuality, and diffidence to your independence — virtues that a democratic society cannot do without. Again, most of what intellectuals do is inconsequential, but if we become paradigms of thoughtlessness, will there be any wonder if we, like the Heidegeers and the Sartres, end up acquiescing one day in great evil? Montesquieu once perceptively remarked that the security that power brings actually makes men more timid rather than less and proximity to power is a way of writing a death warrant for free thinking. When intellectuals abdicate their independence democracy is at far greater risk than when the CII puts profits before propriety.

(The writer is Professor of Philosophy and of Law and Governance, JNU.)

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