STATE REPRESSION: Behind the Mask of Democracy ...

Ashok Agrwaal

Abstract

There has never been a satisfactory solution to the problem of handling / controlling political power, albeit the liberal claim that theirs is the best of the possible solutions known to human history. Notwithstanding the rhetoric justifying the creation and evolution of the modern nation-state, which focuses on its potential – through the ‘Rule of Law’ – to be more just and egalitarian than any other system of organised political power, there is overwhelming empirical evidence to show that things have not changed very much. States continue to repress their citizens in all manner of ways. The difference being that, today, repression is institutionalised and given the name –‘Rule of Law.’ Thus, if the test of the legitimacy of a State’s authority were its non-repressiveness, most States would have to be declared illegitimate. The rule of an absolute dictator could be more fair and just, and thereby more legitimate and lawful, than that in a so-called democracy governed by the ‘Rule of Law. It is equally false to cast the problem of illegitimate exercise of State power in the binary of the despotic East versus the liberal democratic West. In fact, give the lawless history of the Western nation-states, it is reasonable to posit that it is their affluence that engenders their current respect for the rule of law. In other words, the respect is born out of a desire to preserve the status quo rather than a considered (moral) decision to abide with and to live by the rule of law. India is a typical example of the modern nation-state, promising much but delivering virtually nothing. For the vast majority of Indians repression is the only truth and, law and, rule of law have been used by the Indian State to perfect a cradle to grave system of oppression and repression. Examples of the manner in which the State uses law to perpetrate injustice are countless. Judged by this reality, it is evident that the judiciary, which is next only to democracy as the mainstay of the nation-state’s claim to be better, has failed to perform its appointed task.