Azad & Azaadi

Roy walked with the comrades, Verghese walked with the constitution-wallahs. Azad, in his rebuttal to Verghese went on to claim, "Your Constitution is a piece of paper that does not even have the value of a toilet paper for the vast majority of the Indian people." Predictably, the constitution struck with its extra-constitutional means and before Azad could be published, he was killed by Andhra Police in an 'encounter'. As I read his chilling letter to Outlook, I am reminded of Lasantha Wickrematunge's haunting letter 'And then they came for me...' which he had published in the newspaper he edited the day he was killed, predicting his own murder. Caravan's utterly horrifying cover story on Sri Lankan conflict is so long that I am yet to finish it, but together they raise many pertinent questions. To accuse Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Manipur of being failed states is to say that they are exceptions to the rule. Perhaps the intensity and the frequency of these accusations hides behind a more chilling question: if the state continues to fail the people, why can't people fail the state? Instead of counting the failed states, perhaps we should prepare ourselves to mourn the demise of state itself.

I am (re)initiated into this from two points: one, Vinod Mehta's account in his book, and two, Aditya Nigam's brilliant talk in JNU a few days ago. For those interested in a theoretical point of view, his compelling essay (http://criticalencounters.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/the-implosion-of-%E2%80%98the-political%E2%80%99/) may be a good point to begin.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266164