In an opinion article (‘Serial killer’ remark makes it clear Kejriwal will bait Modi) published on August 27, 2022 on the site of a leading television channel in India, the Editor of Satya Hindi wrote about the campaign by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections. The writer appreciated the many aspects of Mr. Kejriwal’s politics, for example, his ability to coin slogans such as ‘serial killer’, his accessible language that was jargon free, his tactic of ridiculing the Prime Minister’s exaggerated claims so that he could get media attention, and his positioning AAP as the primary challenger to the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mr. Kejriwal offered the Delhi model of education and health as the alternative to the failed Gujarat model. The writer of the article, however, ended this appreciation on a sharply critical note.
An unacceptable silence
For the writer of the article, Mr. Kejriwal’s silence, on the release recently of 11 men convicted for murder and rape during the Gujarat riots, was unacceptable. These men had killed Bilkis Bano’s three-year-old child. And Ms. Bano was gang-raped. In their orgy of evil, they murdered several others. The accounts of what happened are stomach churning. The new hatred that roves the land, spawned by a politics of othering, was on gruesome display. It is fortunate that the courts sentenced the guilty to life imprisonment, but the Gujarat government, using a law that permits remission, released them early from jail by arguing that they had served their time. When the 11 men emerged from the penitentiary they were greeted with garlands and ladoos. On seeing these pictures of their release and the celebrations, one wondered, in despair, how much more perversity our nation can endure. What sort of Machiavellian mind would consider the core moral issues of their crimes to be irrelevant? How about even just plain decency? Since elections are around the corner, and constituencies are to be placated, it seems that the calculus of power is alone important. That is the signal from the BJP government in Gujarat.
Despite the outrage among decent citizens, Mr. Kejriwal, however, remained silent. This, for the opinion article writer (mentioned earlier), was unacceptable.
Roosevelt’s compromise
As I was adding my own endorsement to his condemnation, I recalled a scholarly study on U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt by the eminent political scientist Ira Katznelson of Columbia University. In his magisterial work, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time, Professor Katznelson credits Roosevelt with fashioning the new state in the U.S. with his comprehensive package of ‘New Deal’ policies. These pulled America out of the recession, created a new body of entitlements, and set the legal framework for an empowered capitalist state. Further, Roosevelt was the President who took America into the Second World War.
To achieve these gains, Roosevelt had to make tough compromises particularly with the members of Congress from the 13 southern erstwhile slave-owning States whose votes were necessary to pass the relevant legislation. For example, their support for the bill regarding the army draft helped its passage by 203 to 202 votes; 123 votes, out of 131, were from the southern block. To get their backing for the ‘New Deal’, Roosevelt had to overlook their overt racism. He refused to intervene when civil rights activists tried to make lynching a federal offence. He overlooked the segregation housing policy of the Tennessee Valley Authority. There were many such unpleasant compromises with this racist block that Roosevelt made which, although distasteful, he felt necessary for the greater benefits of a New America. Compromise with evil today was necessary for a greater good tomorrow.
Other examples
Was Mr. Kejriwal’s silence similar to Roosevelt’s compromise? It appears so since his policies of transforming public education and health in Delhi and Punjab, and hopefully later in Gujarat, require him, he thinks, to play a soft Hindutva card. The vote must not be fractured. Since his powerful opponent reaps the benefits of hard Hindutva, Mr. Kejriwal thinks, soft Hindutva, along with good governance, will give him a winning political formula.
Prof. Katznelson called Roosevelt’s compromises with the southern racists a ‘Faustian bargain’. Is Mr. Kejriwal too making such a bargain when he chose not to condemn the release of the 11 men who were convicted for serious crimes? Perhaps deposed Myanmarese leader Aung San Suu Kyi also made a Faustian bargain when she made a deal with the Myanmarese Generals to come to power despite the atrocities by the army against the Rohingya. For her deal, and her silence on the atrocities, she was globally condemned with some even asking for the Nobel Peace Prize that was conferred on her in 1991 to to be taken back. Was Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s deal with the BJP a Faustian bargain which has now come unstuck as he has joined hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal? Has Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik made a Faustian bargain with the BJP? Did the former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi enter into a Faustian bargain with the Government that resulted in his nomination to the Rajya Sabha? Do Attorney Generals make Faustian bargains when they deviate, and remain silent, from their defined role of advising the Government on the constitutionality of its policies and actions, as did William Barr who was United States Attorney General in the Donald Trump government?
So, what is a ‘Faustian bargain’? Its classical definition refers to a pact where someone trades something of supreme moral and spiritual value to them, a core principle which defines their essential being, in return for power, knowledge, or wealth. The idea comes from the German legend of Johann Georg Faust who sold his soul to the devil for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. This was for a fixed period. It is a tale that has inspired great literature from Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus to Goethe’s drama Faust. In this bargain, Faust’s soul gets reclaimed by the devil for eternity when the contract expires. This is a hard bargain. Gain now. Damnation forever. In modern terms, this means a temporary benefit gained for the suspension, or suppression, of one’s conscience. The guilt of the compromise, however, does not go away.
Pertinent questions
While the definition speaks in general terms, the question we must consider is whether it applies only to the big leaders, such as Roosevelt. Or does it even apply to senior bureaucrats and heads of institutions? I believe all of us make ‘Faustian bargains’. This raises the allied question: can the bargain, however distasteful and unethical it may be, be justified by better outcomes measured in utilitarian terms. Roosevelt’s bargain produced the New Deal. Mr. Kejriwal may produce a better government in Gujarat. Aung San Suu Kyi’s produced a democratic government in Myanmar. Do all politicians have to make Faustian bargains, assuming they are committed to the public interest that the bargain is supposed to serve?
In contrast to the Faustian bargain, some politicians prefer not to make compromises believing that it is better to take public positions that are consistent with one’s values rather than adopt a utilitarian calculus of compromise with evil for a future good. Gandhiji entered into no Faustian bargain. Nor did Nelson Mandela or Jawaharlal Nehru or Rabindranath Tagore. Babasaheb Ambedkar resigned when he felt Nehru had undermined his position as the Law Minister on the Hindu Code Bill which he wanted to be discussed. His resignation speech is an artistic statement of the principled position.
In politics, therefore, which is the way to go? The Faustian bargain or the principled position?
Peter Ronald deSouza is the D.D. Kosambi Visiting Professor at Goa University. He has recently co-edited the book, ‘Companion to Indian Democracy: Resilience, Fragility, Ambivalence’. The views expressed are personal
