Like many of my generation, especially being a citizen of a country like Bangladesh, a feeling of internal awakening stirs up in the mind at some of our unexpected achievements as well as dismay at the audacious claims to such feats that are beyond all political and social norms. This may sound like an epitaph of myself as a failed citizen but may find some solace if my thoughts are considered as forming a "minority opinion" and not a "dissenting" one. I have no problem in being a minority, but as for dissenting, I have failed to approve to act for it or disapprove not to.
Mohanchand Karamchand Gandhi was the most notable minority in modern human history and in particular, among the company of his fellow crusaders of all faiths for independence and liberty.
He continued to accompany his colleagues in their pursuit and negotiations for transfer of power from the colonial Crown to the new Oligarchs knowing full well that no independence would be brought to the vast majority of the population as he forewarned them that their actions would cause devastations and loss of lives to millions.
The league of leaders in the majority prevailed and till to-date are revered for their role in negotiating the independence, notwithstanding the fact that six million fellow countrymen lost their lives and several millions were displaced and are still traumatised by the fallout of the partitioning of the sub-continent.
Mahatma, of course, had good reasons to argue for separate independent states for each nationality on the basis of language, culture and geographic location under a confederation but none was to be on the basis of religion.
A devout and practising Hindu, he disliked the idea of partitioning on the basis of religion. He contended that he would not have difficulty practising his religion under a Muslim ruler nor should a Muslim have any difficulty under a Hindu Prime Minister.
Gandhiji asserted, "The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small minority voice' within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority."
Gandhiji was more concerned about the future, and experience has already proved that he was right, particularly about the conflict between India and Pakistan that since 1947 have cost both countries billions of dollars besides ruthless suppression of the minorities in their territories.
A thorough idea of a democracy for a pluralistic polity must take into account the challenges of advancing politically unconventional positions without demonising adversaries.
With the rhetorical burden falling on those who contest conventional wisdom, standing policies, or other hegemonic formations, there may be no more quintessentially democratic discourse than that of dissent.
Dissenters especially must learn to critique society in a humanising instead of a demonising term because circumventing the enemy-making rituals of ruling regimes is a key to democracy's momentary escape from tyrannising hegemonies.
"Democracy puts differences into play on an uneven political field where hegemony becomes, in some measure, subject to contestation and possibly a modicum of reformulation.
Thus skewed to hierarchy, the democratic contestation of a healthy pluralistic polity must somehow bridge divisive differences without eluding identities, that is, by means of partial and transitory transfigurations of underlying divisions" -- wrote Robert L Ivie (Toward a Humanizing Style of Democratic Dissent)
Dissent itself is a term that can be misleading, especially when it is treated as a synonym for protest. Protest is a form of democratic dissent, but dissent is more than protest, especially if we associate protest with marching and chanting antiwar slogans.
That kind of protest is easily taken as a sign of alienation and, by extension, as an expression of support for the country's enemies. It also serves unfortunately to condemn dissent of any kind as unpatriotic, including even the rare expression of dissent by elected representatives serving in deliberative bodies such as the U.S. Congress.
"Dissent is democratic because it serves to hold the empowered perspective, and the selective interests served by it, accountable to the broader public.
It brings diverse perspectives to bear on matters of public interest. The deliberation of public policy-as opposed to the management of
public opinion-is democracy in action.
It helps us to vet consequential decisions more thoroughly and to avoid hasty missteps based on the presumption that war is necessary in any given case and that no better alternative exists" writes Amy Goodman (Democracy Now). As Mark Twain said, "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."
When the voice was first raised to establish Bengali as mother tongue in 1948, it was a minority voice as most Bengali Muslims at first did not perceive difficulties in establishing the claim.
In 1952, it became the voice of the majority as all Bengalis wanted to express their feelings in their own language.
In 1954, an autonomous East Pakistan was a minority claim which in 1969 became a majority demand under an independent state for which many millions laid their lives to claim their right.
These sequences of events in Bangladesh and in many parts of the globe only prove that a minority vision or a cause is not necessarily a dissenting claim but in most cases a precursor to a reality that will advance human dignity.
I have difficulties in reconciling with the idea of suspending a minority claim against a "claimed majority" of governing forces by rationalising the need to uphold the common good for the majority.
This only establishes an intellectual weakness in the integrity of a person and provides opportunity to escape the responsibility to question the defined common good which may not be tenable in the future. The "Majority Dictate" is more often brutal and less concerned with future human advancement.
The western tradition of political and ethical thoughts crystallised in the Greek city-state of Athens in late fifth and fourth centuries B.C., where discussions on politics of power and justice, individual and community, deliberation and enactment, class conflict and public
interest were compelling to the relationship between democracy and dissent as thoughts of political modernity.
"In fact, the history of progress of mankind is a history of informed dissent; much of creative activity of high quality in all areas of human endeavour at any given time has been a reflection of such dissent.
Today, we favour democracy as the most acceptable form of governance because a citizen has the right to dissent without fear of victimisation - as long as such dissent does not lead to inhuman or unconstitutional actions.
By contrast, dissent in an authoritarian, dictatorial or colonial regime could lead to the severest of punishments - loss of life - as happened in colonial India, Hitler's Germany or Stalin's USSR", wrote Pushpa M. Bhagrava in The Hindu on June 18, 2014.
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear" (Harry S. Truman to the Congress on internal security of the United States, August 8, 1950).
Human societies are held together by something more than convenience, calculation or the threat of punishment.
There is certainly something in a state's constitution, especially in democratic states, that is permanent, never to be questioned and must be protected and preserved by political institutions.
A democratic constitution is far more than writings on a piece of paper. It envisages cultural and moral loyalty to certain values. This kind of loyalty or feeling of faithfulness consists in an explicit commitment to the basic ideals that the law of the state incorporates.
The power of this meta-juridical ethos reflects on the manner in which procedures work and citizens interact in their daily lives.
This principle is the sovereignty of the individual, of each individual, resulting in the sovereignty of individual political judgment, concluded Nadia Urbinati, Professor of Political Theory at Columbia University, New York.
The writer is an economist, business consultant and President of Bangladesh-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BMCCI).
kbahmed1@gmail.com
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