How could<\/i> I have committed the elementary fallacy of the slippery slope? That’s simple. I committed no such fallacy. An example of the slippery slope fallacy is this: “You start punishing people for murder today and the next thing you know, people will get hanged for killing animals.” Now that is a fallacy because you are refusing to make a sound decision today for fear of making a sound distinction tomorrow. (In this case, the elementary distinction between humans and animals) <\/p>\n
I did not claim that there is no difference at all between citizens and non-citizens. I just wanted to know what the difference was, so that I could use it in my argument, in ways you are probably not anticipating.<\/p>\n
Yazad is right that the reason we let only citizens stand for political posts in our country is to avoid conflicts of interest. But let’s be clear on what the conflict of interest amounts to. If the fear were just that a person could hold political office in two countries simultaneously, then we could pass a law prohibiting that specific action. Of course a person could be Defence Minister of India for a period and then move to Pakistan after demiting his post. But that could happen even now.
\n
\nThe real reason for the citizenship requirement is that we expect things like loyalty<\/b> and commitment<\/b> from our politicians. The law is making an educated guess<\/b> that a person who acquires citizenship of this country is probably willing to make that required commitment. (Yes Gautam, in the economists’ lingo, it is a signalling mechanism<\/i>)<\/p>\n
But please note that the law can at most make an educated guess<\/b>. it cannot guarantee that a citizen will be loyal and committed to the country (or there would be no traitors) <\/p>\n
It is like the law setting the age of majority at 18. What is it saying? Is it saying that on my 18th birthday I was suddenly infused with a sense of responsibility and with a level of maturity that I hadn’t possessed a day before? Of course not. Some people are responsible and sensible ahead of their time and the law is in fact unfair to a sixteen-year old who has enough good sense to manage his money but cannot legally sign his own cheques. Some people never gain their sense of responsibility. You probably shouldn’t turn over the keys to your business empire to your son on the day he turns 18 just because he has turned 18. It is a good idea to exercise your own judgment on the issue.<\/p>\n
Similarly, if a naturalised citizen stands for high office, voters need to judge whether the candidate has developed a sufficient amount of loyalty and commitment to the country, and whether he has actually understood the problems of the country, given that he started off with a handicap. Note that I am not saying that the law should ban the candidate from standing at all. I am only saying that the voters should ask questions and that they deserve an answer.<\/p>\n
Is that too much to ask for? I don’t think so. <\/p>\n
If I stood for elections from Mangalore (my “native” district which I have visited often but never lived in), my opponents and my voters will have legitimate questions about my origins. I can tackle the “outsider” questions by pointing out how much I know about the district. “See? I can speak Tulu.” “See? I know the difference between the Thenku<\/i> and the Badagu<\/i> styles of Yakshagana<\/i>” The onus is on me<\/i> to explain how my knowledge of the district is not as bad as a typical outsider’s, and what other talents I have that will compensate for the little handicap that comes from my having stayed outside the district for most of my life.<\/p>\n
I will certainly not say, “So what if I cannot speak Tulu. Can everyone who has lived all his life in the district speak Tulu?” Or, “What if I know nothing about the problems of the district? Does every politician here know everything about the district?” If I did so, I would be insulting my voters’ intelligence. <\/p>\n
But don’t such arguments constitute the entire case for Sonia Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India? If someone asked how is it that she could not speak Hindi properly even though she had stayed for 40 years in Delhi, the answer was “Can all Indians speak Hindi? Are you saying that someone who doesn’t know Hindi cannot be the Prime Minister?” (Um.. no, but not picking up the local language after forty years in that locality raises legitimate questions about your love and commitment to said locality. And those questions haven’t been answered by looking at the rest of your record.) If someone asked why she became a citizen only in 1983, the answer was “So what? She is a citizen, isn’t she? (Um.. yes she is a citizen. But as I have already explained, citizenship is supposed to signal your commitment to the country, If you became a citizen 15 years<\/i> after you married an Indian citizen, you need to explain what took you so long, and why you hesitated, if you did.) If someone asked what she knew about India, the answer was “Does every Indian know everything about India?”<\/p>\n
That was how the argument went even for even those questions that weren’t directly related to her commitment and loyalty. Education? “Is Uma Bharati educated?” Experience? ” What have all those others with experience achieved?” <\/p>\n
So this is what we had. A person who came from outside India making a claim for the most important job in India, whose only claim to be an Indian is a legal document certifying her to be an Indian, whose only qualification for the post is that she was at least better than the dumbest among us. A person who would fail any test of Indianness devised, but her defense amounted to saying that because no one would score full marks in the test, it didn’t matter that she scored a zero. The only way to claim that she is an Indian is to deny that there is any basis for nationalism at all; that there is any thing that Indians share, which makes them distinct from non-Indians. <\/p>\n
Excuse me while I take a small digression and talk of nationalism. Most people who supported Sonia committed the “with-us-or-against-us” fallacy. They assumed that everyone who opposed Sonia and called her a foreigner were automatically taking the narrow position of religious nationalism. “She-isn’t-Hindu-and-she-is-white- and-so she is Foreign”. That is not true. There is such a thing as secular nationalism, you know. <\/p>\n
Religious nationalists’ approach to nationalism is to dig deep into the past and discover<\/i> something that unites us, and use that as a basis for nationalism. But nationalism isn’t discovered<\/i>, it is constructed<\/i>. Every generation finds things we have in common, things that we share, things that we value and things that we can be proud of, and builds a nationalism out of it. Just because it is constructed it doesn’t mean that it isn’t real. <\/p>\n
So we middle-class Indians are building a secular nationalism and we are using as raw material uncontroversial things that we all can share, like cricket, films, songs etc. We are also taking religious festivals like Diwali and Holi, and stripping them of sectarian meanings and converting them to national symbols. We aren’t doing these things consciously and purposefully of course. We are doing those things by simply going on with our lives. <\/p>\n
When I say that “X” is something we share it doesn’t mean that every Indian shares “X” and that anyone who doesn’t appreciate “X” isn’t an Indian. But I am saying that many Indians share it, and X, Y and Z together defines<\/i> Indianness. <\/p>\n
These things that we share help us to communicate better with one another and help us work with each other better. <\/p>\n
Now we secular nationalists were told that unless we accept someone with whom none of us has anything in common as leader, we have thrown in our lot with the religious nationalists. We were supposed to be proud<\/i> of the fact that we ended up electing Sonia as our Prime Minister. Proud <\/i> of the fact that a person of no talent with no qualification to rule had manuevered herself into a position of power by using what we saw as our age-old weakness – dissension in our ranks? If she had become Prime Minister, we would have seen Congress culture in its full bloom. We would have seen Congressmen compete among themselves to display sycophancy. Was that something that would fill our hearts with pride? Even now, the spectacle of a seventy-year old Manmohan Singh with a record of public service behind him and a PhD in economics with him saying that he would seek “guidance” from Sonia Gandhi makes me cringe, whether or not I think of her as a forigner. Many people do think of her as a foreigner and they’d see it as a national humiliation. They certainly won’t feel proud.<\/i><\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the political battle between religious and secular nationalisms is being fought within the BJP. In fact they share a symbiotic relationship there.
\n(We middle-class Indians don’t associate the Congress with nationalism. That is because the Congress has recklessly squandered the legacy of the freedom struggle which it used to carry. In fact the freedom struggle and the symbols of the republic could have been one of the bases for nationalism. But because the Congress misrule tainted those symbols, I think the middle-class turned to the BJP and the Ram Temple for a brief period looking for things to be proud of. But that is another story)
\n<\/small>
\nBut on this issue, both the BJPs would have been united and the middle-class would have moved inexorably towards the BJP, with every misstep Sonia took. (Needless to say, she would take a lot of missteps) Don’t underestimate the middle-class by the way, it has effected a change in government in 1989 and 91. because of Bofors and Mandal respectively. The effect this time would have been much worse for the Congress, and we’d have to hope<\/i> that it is the secular nationalists and not the religious nationalists who would have won the internal battle within the BJP.<\/p>\n
So that’s what I have got against Sonia. To repeat, I don’t think that naturalised citizens should be constitutionally barred from becoming Prime Minister. I know that Americans don’t allow non-American born citizens become President, but their founders wrote it to guard against a specific threat which is not relevant now. (To prevent one of the European royal families from installing one of their scions as President by working the political process and then converting the US into a monarchy). But even if the Americans repeal the provision and an immigrant does run for President, I am sure, he will have a record of achievements, adopted American values and lived the American dream. <\/p>\n
Similarly, if you are some immigrant who wishes to become Prime Minister of India, build up a track record, display an understanding and commitment towards India, learn to speak our language and understand our metaphors. Then seek a mandate specifically for your Premiership. If you succeed, I will be proud. Not till then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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