Review: Between Hope and Despair by Rajeev Bhargava

The book begins provocatively: “India’s collective ethical identity is under duress.” While the statement might evoke immediate cynicism, the author goes on to provide a guide to making ethical value judgements. He contends that the nation’s issue is not a “refusal to judge,” but rather an excess of value judgement manifested in “self-congratulatory positive value judgement about ourselves and negative value judgement about others.” In other words, we quickly categorise things into right and wrong without fully comprehending them. The “anti-national” category that’s been in vogue for around a decade now reeks of exactly such a value judgement. To explain, Bhargava cites pro-Nazi political scholar Carl Schmitt who made the friend-enemy distinction as “constitutive of politics itself.” Bhargava calls this friend-enemy mentality “undemocratic” because no one is an enemy in a democracy; especially one who is a fellow citizen of the country. It’s a distinction that’s often used at election time – supporting a particular party means you are a patriot; supporting a different one means you are the enemy.

Bhargava points out that for a long time, educated Indians refused to make their value judgement public and eschewed the use of ethical terminologies. This could have been due to the fear of gatekeepers like religious leaders, or the loss of fame. Whatever the reason, it created a huge moral vacuum in the public sphere and could perhaps have led to the emergence of a morally coarse public culture. About “moral coarseness”, he asks “Why do we react feebly or, worse, not at all, when people beyond our little community are treated cruelly?” He believes we need a “moral answer to situations like mob lynching, or caste atrocities” and adds that the indifference of the middle class towards evil in our society is problematic.

He points to an emerging new form of ideological violence. Events like the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh “by assassination squads run by hate groups against hapless individuals for merely holding and expressing their (different) views in public”, he believes, is pushing the nation towards despair. It’s a situation that seems to have no immediate solution. And then there is the depressingly everyday violence rooted in toxic masculinity that individuals from underprivileged sections most often face. Like the killing of the Dalit who dared to sport a moustache or the merciless beating of a young girl who asked her lover to marry her. “A key feature exhibited through images of social violence and integral to a culture of masculinity is the belief that “real men” are directly responsible for sustaining a moral order. Being its guardians, they must restore that order when it is disturbed,” writes Bhargava. Sadly, these incidents don’t elicit much response beyond social media outrage that lasts for a brief while or a symbolic protest by a few people.

Well written in a succinct style that breaks down complex concepts and explains them in the easiest way possible, Bhargava’s writing makes the reader uncomfortable enough to think deeply. Between Hope and Despair raises some pertinent questions on the ideological crisis of liberal democracy. It has failed to create a commitment towards the common good “that presupposes a strong sense of public spiritedness.” Indeed, today the Indian urban middle class seems to believe that not speaking up on issues like mob lynching is an individual preference.

“We are inescapably ethical creatures”, Bhargava says, and “we cannot but help being oriented to the good or the bad or to the right or the wrong”. This seems somewhat naive given that it seems certain that the large mass of the middle class has been refusing to take a stand. Bhargava also misses another crisis that we are faced with – collective boredom. Young people, who increasingly feel a sense of disenchantment and cynicism, prefer to adopt a more oblivious outlook toward prevalent socio-political problems. Unemployment, the nature of work, family expectations, technological interventions, and social media fuel this uneasy monotony causing them to self medicate with alcohol and drugs in an attempt to shake themselves out of this state. Until a few decades ago, this had seemed like a First World problem; no longer.

Still, this is an interesting work. These essays are a must-read for the contemporary Indian and should be translated into multiple languages so that we, as citizens of this nation, can reflect on the issues that confront us.

Edward Said contended that a public intellectual’s mission should be to advance human knowledge and freedom. Following this, Bhargava’s work avoids the solipsism that marks the work of most academics and his writing is direct, eschewing any unnecessary verbiage while putting forward complex ideas.

At a time when real issues are easily obfuscated and it has become imperative to know right from wrong, this book acts as a handy guide.

Mayank Jain Parichha is an independent bilingual journalist. He writes about the environment, wildlife, culture, literature, and politics.

Rajeev Bhargava’s columns on ethics and politics in leading national dailies have been quite popular. His latest book, Between Hope and Despair, a collection of 100 essays, also examines the ethical issues with which India is currently grappling. It does so by asking questions, simplifying them, offering solutions, and exhorting readers to make ethical value judgements.

The book begins provocatively: “India’s collective ethical identity is under duress.” While the statement might evoke immediate cynicism, the author goes on to provide a guide to making ethical value judgements. He contends that the nation’s issue is not a “refusal to judge,” but rather an excess of value judgement manifested in “self-congratulatory positive value judgement about ourselves and negative value judgement about others.” In other words, we quickly categorise things into right and wrong without fully comprehending them. The “anti-national” category that’s been in vogue for around a decade now reeks of exactly such a value judgement. To explain, Bhargava cites pro-Nazi political scholar Carl Schmitt who made the friend-enemy distinction as “constitutive of politics itself.” Bhargava calls this friend-enemy mentality “undemocratic” because no one is an enemy in a democracy; especially one who is a fellow citizen of the country. It’s a distinction that’s often used at election time – supporting a particular party means you are a patriot; supporting a different one means you are the enemy.

Bhargava points out that for a long time, educated Indians refused to make their value judgement public and eschewed the use of ethical terminologies. This could have been due to the fear of gatekeepers like religious leaders, or the loss of fame. Whatever the reason, it created a huge moral vacuum in the public sphere and could perhaps have led to the emergence of a morally coarse public culture. About “moral coarseness”, he asks “Why do we react feebly or, worse, not at all, when people beyond our little community are treated cruelly?” He believes we need a “moral answer to situations like mob lynching, or caste atrocities” and adds that the indifference of the middle class towards evil in our society is problematic.

He points to an emerging new form of ideological violence. Events like the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh “by assassination squads run by hate groups against hapless individuals for merely holding and expressing their (different) views in public”, he believes, is pushing the nation towards despair. It’s a situation that seems to have no immediate solution. And then there is the depressingly everyday violence rooted in toxic masculinity that individuals from underprivileged sections most often face. Like the killing of the Dalit who dared to sport a moustache or the merciless beating of a young girl who asked her lover to marry her. “A key feature exhibited through images of social violence and integral to a culture of masculinity is the belief that “real men” are directly responsible for sustaining a moral order. Being its guardians, they must restore that order when it is disturbed,” writes Bhargava. Sadly, these incidents don’t elicit much response beyond social media outrage that lasts for a brief while or a symbolic protest by a few people.

Well written in a succinct style that breaks down complex concepts and explains them in the easiest way possible, Bhargava’s writing makes the reader uncomfortable enough to think deeply. Between Hope and Despair raises some pertinent questions on the ideological crisis of liberal democracy. It has failed to create a commitment towards the common good “that presupposes a strong sense of public spiritedness.” Indeed, today the Indian urban middle class seems to believe that not speaking up on issues like mob lynching is an individual preference.

“We are inescapably ethical creatures”, Bhargava says, and “we cannot but help being oriented to the good or the bad or to the right or the wrong”. This seems somewhat naive given that it seems certain that the large mass of the middle class has been refusing to take a stand. Bhargava also misses another crisis that we are faced with – collective boredom. Young people, who increasingly feel a sense of disenchantment and cynicism, prefer to adopt a more oblivious outlook toward prevalent socio-political problems. Unemployment, the nature of work, family expectations, technological interventions, and social media fuel this uneasy monotony causing them to self medicate with alcohol and drugs in an attempt to shake themselves out of this state. Until a few decades ago, this had seemed like a First World problem; no longer.

Still, this is an interesting work. These essays are a must-read for the contemporary Indian and should be translated into multiple languages so that we, as citizens of this nation, can reflect on the issues that confront us.

Edward Said contended that a public intellectual’s mission should be to advance human knowledge and freedom. Following this, Bhargava’s work avoids the solipsism that marks the work of most academics and his writing is direct, eschewing any unnecessary verbiage while putting forward complex ideas.

At a time when real issues are easily obfuscated and it has become imperative to know right from wrong, this book acts as a handy guide.

Mayank Jain Parichha is an independent bilingual journalist. He writes about the environment, wildlife, culture, literature, and politics.